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Chapter Text

April 2060

By the time I got back to the lab, Mr. Dunworthy was gone.

“Colin—” Badri began, but I didn’t let him finish.

“You’ve already sent him through. Let me go after him,” I pleaded.

“No,” he said. “No drops for anyone until Mr. Dunworthy returns. Dunworthy’s orders.” I started to object, but the sympathetic look on Badri’s face stopped me. I could hardly claim Badri didn’t understand when it was all too clear he did, and didn’t like the situation, either.

I turned my back on him, and was very tempted to smash the torch I’d brought against the nearest wall, but I didn’t do it. Now, more than ever, I needed Badri and the others to see me as an adult.

Badri placed a hand on my shoulder, and it took a conscious effort on my part not to shrug it off. He meant well. All of the adults in Mr. Dunworthy’s circle mean well, but none of them are willing to let me out of the “too young” cage.

“Colin. I’ll let you know the minute he and Polly come through. Even if it’s the middle of the night, if you like.”

“Yes, please,” I said, and left the lab while I still had some semblance of self-control.

I hurried over to Mr. Dunworthy’s rooms, as it was the nearest place I could expect some privacy. I needed to settle myself before approaching any of the other adults. I needed to think.

Dunworthy had been worried enough about slippage that he’d gone to fetch Polly. Why was he so concerned? Surely he didn’t think Ishiwaka’s theory was correct. Polly had three years to go before her deadline. If the potential for slippage were that bad, what would happen to Mr. Dunworthy? He’d traveled to the Blitz, hadn’t he? When?

About an hour later, Kivrin knocked on the door. I let her in saying, “Have you heard?”

She nodded. “I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear.”

“You want me to go back to Eton,” I said dully. Kivrin had been my best hope for staying on in Oxford to help. She’s become the sister I never had, but she can be nearly as overprotective as Mr. Dunworthy.

“Not this very minute, but today.”

“Why are you in such a hurry to pack me off?” I said, then realized, “The drop won't open, will it? Dunworthy went flash-time and Badri's already tried a retrieval and the drop won't open.”

“Yes,” Kivrin said, looking grim.

“When were you planning on telling me?!” I could hear my voice becoming shrill.

“Not for a few days yet, if I could manage it without lying to you,” she admitted. “This will likely sort itself out in short order. There was no need to upset you when there was nothing you could do about it. I see two possibilities. One: Dunworthy and Polly will return in a matter of hours or days. In that case, there’s no reason for you not to be at school.”

“But I’m on holiday—”

“Colin, your acceptance to Balliol is conditional. You need to finish the summer half and do well on your A levels. I know how much time you’ve spent here helping Polly. You’ll be sent down or fail your exams if you spend much more time in Oxford. Go back to school and study.”

I wanted to contradict her, but she was right. I should have known Dunworthy would tell her about the calls from my housemaster. Years ago, my mother had put Dunworthy down on my school form as a contact. At the time, I’d thought it apocalyptic. Only later had I discovered how inconvenient it could be to have a responsible adult in my life. “And the second possibility?” I asked.

“It could be months or even years before Dunworthy returns,” she said.

“Years?!”

Kivrin nodded. “Unlikely, but possible. In that case, if you want to help us get them back—”

“Of course I do,” I interrupted.

“Then you’ll need to become a properly trained historian. Which, again, means you need to finish up at Eton.”

“Kiv, I don’t understand why Dunworthy’s so worried about slippage,” I said.

“I don’t either, and Badri’s puzzled as well.”

Which explained how Kivrin had found me so quickly. Badri must have called her and Kivrin had guessed I'd go to Dunworthy's rooms. “But if Polly’s in danger, what about Mr. Dunworthy? Surely his deadline is much sooner?”

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “Colin, I don’t know what’s going on in Dunworthy’s head just now. I’ve spoken to Badri and Finch and Ned, and Dunworthy hasn’t shared his concerns with anyone. We’re not keeping something from you. We’ll notify you as soon as they return.”

“Or if you learn something important,” I added.

“Yes,” she replied without hesitation.

“I’ll go back to Eton,” I agreed reluctantly, “but if they’re not back by the time I leave, I want to help.”

“I know,” she said. “I do know what they mean to you.”

It wasn’t a promise that she’d let me help, but it was better than a flat refusal. We had dinner together and then I went back to school, trying not to think of the third possibility, the one neither of us had dared to mention.

Dunworthy and Polly might never return at all.

July 2060

Nothing had changed by the time I left Eton. I’d spoken to Kivrin on a near-daily basis since April, but all she could tell me was that they were still trying to understand what had happened. Two weeks before I finished school, she sent me an odd present: a box of essays I’d written for Dunworthy over the years. Many of them were about the Crusades, but most were from other time periods, assigned as punishment for one misdeed or another. It was an embarrassingly large collection and I was surprised to learn Dunworthy had kept copies of all my work. Kivrin had enclosed a note saying, “You’ll need these!”

Reading them again with fresh eyes, I was impressed by how well-constructed they were, even the ones I’d done as a twelve-year-old. Then again, Dunworthy had never been hesitant to make me re-do work until it met his standards, especially if he sensed I was trying to scrape by with minimal effort. Seeing his handwritten notes in the margins was almost painful. Was this all I had left of him? And why had Kivrin sent them? I’d be in Oxford soon enough; there’d been no need to send them unless she meant for me to start reviewing them.

My mother took me on a brief holiday to celebrate finishing Eton. I’d tried to explain to her that I was worried about Polly and Mr. Dunworthy and not much interested in celebrating, but she couldn’t seem to take it in. All she would say was, “I’m sure they’re fine,” and, “But it’s time travel,” as if no one had ever died on a drop. During the day, I smiled and pretended to enjoy myself, but after she’d gone to bed each night, I spent an hour or two with my old essays and a few texts on my handheld.

Two days after we got back to London, I packed my things and set off for Oxford. My mother couldn’t understand why I wanted to go to university early. Apparently, I’d been expected to spend the balance of the summer wandering about Europe, getting drunk with friends, as she had done. I’d long since given up trying to make her understand that her future daughter-in-law and the man who’d mentored me for the past five years might be in danger. I simply told her I had friends in Oxford to go drinking with.

By the time I reached Kivrin’s flat, I felt ready to launch into a brilliantly persuasive speech. I was no longer a schoolboy, and it was time for the adults to recognize that.

Damn. I reminded myself, not for the first time, to stop thinking of them as “the adults.” I was an adult.

I didn’t get a chance to use my speech on Kivrin. The minute I set my bags down, she grabbed me and started out the door.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Strategy meeting. I thought you’d be here earlier in the day, so we’re a bit behind schedule for meeting the others.”

“Others?” I said, but she ignored all my questions. We walked briskly to a restaurant not far from Balliol. Kivrin led me through the main dining room to a private room in the back. Ned, Verity, Badri, and Finch were already there, eating appetizers.

Apart from congratulating me on finishing Eton, no one seemed interested in discussing anything more substantial than what to order. To me, it felt more like friends getting together for a meal than a strategy meeting. We’d nearly finished eating when Kivrin turned to me and said, “Right, then. This is where things stand. Dunworthy’s drop won’t open. We decided to try retrieving anyone who was on assignment during World War II, which encompasses the area of elevated slippage. We were only able to get one drop to open, in Singapore, and that closed as soon as we got the historian back. None of the World War II drops we’ve tried will open now. We’re not sure if the drops are permanently disabled or only intermittently functional.”

“We’ve been able to piece together Dunworthy’s movements in the week preceding his departure,” Finch said. “Dunworthy was spending a lot of time on the phone with Ishiwaka, and went up to London to see him in person. Clearly, he was worried that the elevated slippage around World War II might be a hint that the continuum is breaking down.”

“He wasn’t worried enough to send someone else to fetch Polly,” I pointed out.

“True,” said Kivrin, “so we think he was concerned about Ishiwaka’s theory, but not convinced it’s correct. In addition to tracking slippage, Dunworthy was also interested in information about a drop he made in September 1940.”

“September? When in September?” I asked.

“The seventeenth,” Badri said.

“And you sent Dunworthy through to retrieve Polly when?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“The tenth,” he answered grimly.

“So Dunworthy has a deadline of one week,” I said hollowly.

“Colin, if it takes us years—” Verity said.

“We’d have to locate him and open a drop somewhere during that one week,” I said. “That’s not much to work with.”

“It’s not,” Kivrin acknowledged, “but there may have been slippage.”

“Which would give us even less of a window,” I said.

“Unless the slippage is so great he didn’t arrive until much later,” Ned countered. “Which is possible, given the slippage on some other drops to World War II.”

“Dunworthy chose to go through, even knowing he had a deadline,” Badri said. “He clearly didn’t think the risk was that great.”

“He’d risk anything to save one of us,” I said.

There was an awkward silence, then Kivrin said, “Dunworthy contacted Research, looking for information on the seventeenth. Apparently, he was interested in casualty lists and obituaries for that date. He asked them to locate a photograph of a Wren killed in Ave Maria Lane.”

Ned said, “All of the drops after the one to the seventeenth experienced slippage. We’re guessing Dunworthy thought something on that drop created an incongruity.”

“Hang on,” I said. "Dunworthy thinks the net is breaking down now because of something he did decades ago?"

“Nonlinear system,” Verity murmured.

“Who’s stuck in the past?” I asked. “Apart from Polly and Mr. Dunworthy.”

“Merope Ward and Michael Davies are the only ones we’re sure of,” Finch replied. “We still have a few historians out on assignment in other time periods, but we haven’t been retrieving them early. So far, we haven’t had any difficulty on return drops from any time outside World War II. Badri’s worked out a program, with TJ’s help, to systematically ping all the drop sites we’ve ever used, including unmanneds. We don’t know why this is happening or how large the problem is. We should have a decent map of what’s temporally accessible to us in—?” he said, giving Badri a questioning glance.

“Another two weeks, at least,” Badri supplied. “That’s assuming the map is stable, and it may not be, so we’ll need to run a background program to periodically check and update the map. For the time being, there are no outgoing drops, and Lady Schrapnell’s not pleased.”

Ned said, “Lady Schrapnell’s my job.”

“Brave man,” I said, and everyone laughed. Ned was the Head of Retrievals, the new program dedicated to the retrieval of nonsignificant objects. Given Lady Schrapnell’s personality, I couldn’t imagine why he’d agreed to take the job. I suspected Ned often wondered the same himself.

Ned said, “Apart from being impatient, Lady Schrapnell’s been quite decent. She’s rather fond of Mr. Dunworthy. It’s partly due to her influence that Finch is the Acting Head of Time Travel and the de facto Head of the History department.”

“Actually,” Finch put in, “Professor Trubshaw is the Acting Head of History, but he’s not interested in Time Travel.”

“His area is Nineteenth Century,” Ned reminded me. “You might not remember him, as he takes no interest in practical history. His lectures were dreadfully dull when I was a fresher. He rarely takes his nose out of a book. I’m surprised he agreed to be Head. I would have thought he’d see it as a thankless job keeping him from his students and his research.”

“It’s a status symbol to him,” Verity said, making a face. “He imagines it will give him power.” Beside me, Kivrin snickered, and I nearly joined her. The time I’d spent in Oxford had taught me that academics are about as controllable as Finch-Lewis kittens.

Kivrin said, “So Dunworthy’s responsibilities have been split among four people. Trubshaw is nominally the Head of History, but he’s such a toad that most people will ignore him when they possibly can. Finch is Head of Time Travel, not that much of a step up for him, considering how much of the paperwork he was already doing. His first act of office was inspired.”

Verity said, “Eddritch’s got the sack.”

“Not truly,” Finch said, upon seeing my gleeful expression. “Eddritch has been reassigned as Trubshaw’s assistant.”

Badri said, “So if we need something from Trubshaw, it’s going to be rather gruesome.”

“True,” Finch said. “But Eddritch is skilled at being unhelpful, not at knowing the proper forms and procedures. His ignorance can be exploited.”

Kivrin said, “So we believe we can use Finch to work around Trubshaw and Eddritch, when absolutely necessary.”

“The third part of Dunworthy’s responsibilities, tutoring students, has gone to Verity,” Ned said. “She was a lecturer last year, but next term, she’ll be a tutor for the first time. Your tutor, in fact, if you decide to specialize in Twentieth Century.”

“We know your original interest was in becoming a medievalist,” Verity said tentatively, “but we thought perhaps your priorities have changed.”

Meaning, I suppose, that I’d need to specialize in Twentieth Century to have much hope of finding Polly and Dunworthy. I’d reluctantly come to the same conclusion. I’d thought it over, and reasoned that if Dunworthy and Polly returned soon, I could always change my focus back to Medieval. I turned to Kivrin. “That's only three things. What’s the fourth?”

“You,” Kivrin said. “The last job that’s important to Dunworthy.”

“More likely the first,” said Badri.

Kivrin glanced at Badri, nodded, and then told me, “You’re my task.”

I should have expected that. Dunworthy had taken me under his wing five years earlier, and nearly all of Balliol knew it. It had never been a secret, but hearing it stated so baldly caught me off guard. It was only going to make what I had to say that much harder.

“I do think I should go with Twentieth Century,” I began, “but I want to study with the best. No offense to you, Verity,” I added hastily. “I want to go to 2030 and study with Mr. Dunworthy. If I went flash-time, I could come back to 2060 fully qualified, and take an active role in the retrieval immediately, instead of years from now.”

Whatever response the others had been expecting, this wasn’t it. None of them said anything for a moment, then Verity turned to Finch and said uncertainly, “Would that be possible?”

“Probably not,” Badri answered, and my heart sank. “Preliminary results on the mapping indicate we can’t get to anything after 2000. Getting anywhere near Oxford during the first two decades of time travel has always been nearly impossible.”

“I did it,” Ned said. “Not intentionally, though.”

“Perhaps—” I began, but Kivrin cut me off.

“You’re not doing it,” she declared, with a firmness that surprised me. “Apart from the difficulties of setting up such a drop, there’s a chance you could muck up the early history of Time Travel. And it would be too hard for you, Colin. He wouldn’t be your Mr. Dunworthy. He wouldn’t know you. You’d be alone.”

I was on the verge of telling her I was already alone, when I glanced around the table. True, I’d lost Polly and Mr. Dunworthy, but I wasn’t as alone as I’d believed, and I should remember that. I bowed my head, accepting defeat.

“We have a different plan,” Verity said. I looked up at her. “You’ve a much stronger background than most first-year students. Normally, you’d be taking college examinations at the start of your first term to assess your readiness and let us know where your strengths and weaknesses lie.”

“I know,” I said quietly.

“Then you know that you can’t fail collections; they’re merely diagnostic,” Verity said. “And you likely know that you’re expected to pass the public examinations you take at the end of your first year...”

“Preliminary examinations,” I said automatically. Where was this going?

“We have two students who failed their exams and will be re-taking their prelims before the start of term,” Verity continued. “You could sit the exams, too, if you like.”

“And skip my first year?” I asked, turning it over in my head.

“I don’t think you’d be able to skip it in its entirety,” Verity answered. “You may well have to sit the prelims again at the end of your first year, but if we knew there were first-year lectures you needn’t attend, that would let you make a start on temporal theory a year early.”

Badri added, “And there are technical courses on the net you might find useful. Not necessarily the ones that would allow you to design or service a net, but how to calculate coordinates and plan drops and such.”

“And you might… might have time to do independent historical research on the side,” Kivrin said.

Such as looking for clues to Polly’s whereabouts. It wasn’t exactly what I’d wanted, but I’d expected all along they wouldn’t let me go on a drop straight away. Actually, it wasn’t a bad plan, and Undergraduate Colin seemed to be a definite step up from Schoolboy Colin. They were doing their best to create a viable pathway for me. “How would that work?” I said. “Surely the department won’t allow it. I haven’t even started university yet.”

Finch smiled. “The University would likely defer to Balliol in such matters. If and when Trubshaw takes notice of it, we can point to a letter in your admission papers from Mr. Dunworthy to the Education Committee, recommending early testing for you on the strength of your academic record.”

“Did Mr. Dunworthy actually write such a letter?” I asked, wondering just how far Finch’s skills extended.

“Yes,” Finch said. “It was always his intention that your undergraduate course of study should be enriched, although not shortened.”

“So you could spend more of your graduate career in the field, rather than lecture rooms,” Kivrin explained. “He was quite firm on your not going on assignment until you were twenty, so he thought you should make good use of your time while you waited.”

How like Dunworthy, I thought, to make arrangements for my preparation to be as thorough as possible while not budging an inch on his age rule. And to assume I’d pursue a graduate degree. Then again, he’d taken me seriously when I’d told him I wanted to be an historian at age twelve, although my mother hadn’t. “I’ve already begun revising,” I told Kivrin. “I assumed you’d sent the essays for a reason.”

“Clever boy,” Kivrin said, smiling. “Welcome to the retrieval team.”

For once, the word “boy” didn’t rankle.

Later that evening, Kivrin and I went back to her flat and she showed me where to put my things. “We’re holding Mr. Dunworthy’s rooms for him,” she said. “You can stay there if you insist, but I’d rather have you here with me, if you don’t mind.”

“Planning on setting my bed-time, are you?” I teased. “And here I was, looking forward to hosting drunken orgies in Mr. Dunworthy’s sitting room.”

I’d thought that would make her smile, but her expression became unexpectedly serious. “You’ve lost the two people you love most in the world. I don’t think you should be alone just yet.”

I hadn’t been certain she knew about Polly. Had it been that obvious? “Does everyone know? About Polly, I mean?”

“Not everyone, I think,” she said. “No doubt Dunworthy guessed, as he sees most things, but he never confided in me. Badri and Linna knew, but Finch hadn’t figured it out. Ned had guessed, even though he doesn’t see you that often. He saw you looking at Polly one day and was immediately reminded of the way he feels about Verity.”

I groaned.

“No one thinks it’s funny,” Kivrin reassured me. “Nor are they gossiping about it. It just came up one day while we were talking. You may think we haven’t made much progress, but it’s taken endless discussion to get this far. Dunworthy’s not an easy man to replace, even on a temporary basis. Getting Finch named as Acting Head of Time Travel was a definite coup.”

“About 2030—” I began.

“Colin, you heard Badri. I know you want to be Mr. Dunworthy’s student, but it’s not possible. We are doing our best to bring him home. Dunworthy was certainly looking forward to being your tutor, and he’ll be rather put out if you’ve already graduated by the time he returns.”

“Kiv, I don’t mind studying Twentieth Century now, but I’d truly like to be a medievalist. Will you help me?”

“You’re quite tall for that time period already, and I’m not convinced you’re done growing,” she said doubtfully.

“I could be a Viking,” I said.

“Colin the Viking,” she said, and that made her smile. “Very well. Officially, you can only have one primary tutor—”

“Verity,” I acknowledged.

“—but I can be your secondary tutor and help you with the Middle Ages on the side. Dunworthy can be your tutor when he comes back. You wouldn’t be the first cuckoo hatched in his nest.”

That settled, we turned in for the night. As I drifted off to sleep, I thought about what an eventful day it had been. I’d left my mother’s, perhaps for the last time. I’d feared Time Travel would be resigned to the loss of Dunworthy, but had happily learned his absence was considered temporary. Nothing was happening nearly so fast as I would have liked, but looking at things logically, they were making sensible decisions and proceeding methodically in search of a solution. Most importantly, I felt I’d been accepted by the others as a not-yet-trained equal instead of a child.

September 2060

By the time I moved out of Kivrin’s flat and into Balliol, Badri had finished the temporal map. Many areas of the past were still accessible. Some of the inaccessible bits of history had always been impossible to reach, such as the Battle of Waterloo, but there were new areas, too. So far, Badri hadn’t been able to get to anything after 1995, which destroyed any lingering hope I’d had of studying in 2030. Worse yet, everything between 1937 and 1959 was off-limits.

The retrieval team held “strategy meetings” every week or so, to pool our knowledge and boost morale. Sometimes TJ and Linna came. Of the others, Kivrin, Badri, Finch, and I were regulars, and Ned and Verity came more often than not, although not always together.

We’d developed two possible explanations for what had happened. The “we broke it” scenario held that Ishiwaka’s theory was correct: the increased slippage around World War II indicated time-traveling historians had damaged the continuum beyond repair. Thus far, the damage was confined to the years near World War II and after 1995, but there was no guarantee things would stay that way. If true, that would mean we should stop doing time travel altogether.

The more hopeful theory was what Ned called the “we’re just along for the ride” scenario. Based on his experiences with Verity, Ned thought the closure around World War II might be part of a self-correction, and that the closed drops would begin to function again as the self-correction progressed. The trapped historians were either part of the self-correction, or were in limbo to prevent them from interfering with the self-correction. Ned and Verity had traveled to London to meet with Ishiwaka. He’d been intrigued by their experiences, which did sound as if the net had been bouncing them around the continuum as part of a self-correction, but still thought his own theory was plausible.

Thus far, we didn’t have enough data to know if either scenario was correct. The last of the historians out on assignment had come home without incident. After much debate, Ned and Finch decided to begin authorizing drops again, taking care to do each historian’s drops in chronological order. Badri and Linna had been monitoring slippage obsessively, but nothing seemed out of order.

As expected, I’d made a good showing on my exams. As my tutor, Verity advised me to skip some subjects I might otherwise have taken in favor of courses usually taught to upper-year students, including temporal theory and net mechanics. I’d been a bit worried about being accepted by the older students in my advanced courses, but they scarcely took notice of me. All of them had heard of Dunworthy, even if they hadn’t been taught by him. To them, I suppose, it didn’t seem odd that a fresher who’d grown up under the influence of a don might be ahead of his year in some subjects.

Although I’d tested well in Nineteenth Century, Verity and Kivrin urged me to attend Trubshaw’s lectures, anyway. They’d thought he might take offense if I skipped his lectures and believed that suffering through them with my yearmates would be a bonding experience. Trubshaw proved to be every bit as dull as Ned had remembered. It was grim work, but I forced myself to pay attention and schooled my body language not to betray the intense boredom I felt. I might need Trubshaw’s good will in the future.

I nearly got off to a bad start with him on the first day. Trubshaw asked a question and then pointed at me, “You. Name?”

“Colin Templer, sir,” I’d replied, and began to answer his question, but he interrupted me.

“You’re Dunworthy’s boy, aren’t you?” he asked, peering at me over his spectacles.

I hesitated a moment before saying, “Yes, sir,” and began to answer the question again.

“He used to be the Head of History,” Trubshaw informed the other students, who were now staring at me. “I expect he’s told you about me.” Something about his tone indicated I was being tested. Was I supposed to say Dunworthy had praised him to the heavens? Or had Dunworthy despised him, in which case an attempt to stroke his vanity would be an obvious lie?

I murdered my pride and said, “Sir, I’m afraid the only thing Mr. Dunworthy ever told me was to eat my Brussels sprouts.”

Everyone laughed, and Trubshaw finally let me answer the question. He moved on to another hapless victim while I sat there, seething. The other students would rag me from now on about being Dunworthy’s little boy, and I didn’t like the way he’d said, “Used to be Head of History.”

Luckily, the teasing wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. A group of students clustered around me as we left the lecture. Andrew and Taki, who lived on my staircase, had been sitting next to me, and I recognized Phoebe and Kat, who lived two staircases over. I didn’t know the others.

Phoebe said, “My mum’s a teacher. Horribly embarrassing, isn’t it?”

I smiled, as Taki asked, “So is this Dunworthy your guardian?”

“Not legally,” I told him. “I went to the Black Death with him when I was twelve, and I’ve spent my holidays here in Oxford ever since.” I hadn’t been inclined to tell anyone that, but Kivrin had warned me the other freshers would find out soon enough.

“You never,” Andrew said. “He never took you to the Black Death.”

“It wasn’t his idea,” I admitted. “I jumped in the net at the last moment. Ask Miss Engle. She’s the one we were retrieving.”

“Did he really make you eat Brussels sprouts?” Kat asked.

“Thank God, no. That would have been worse than the plague,” I said, and they laughed. “I had to say something though, didn’t I?”

“How can someone so boring be so vain?” Phoebe asked, a question for which no one had an answer. “Where's your Mr. Dunworthy, if he’s not Head now? Retired?”

Lost, I thought. “On assignment,” I said. “Not sure when he’ll return. He’s Twentieth Century, though, so we’ll still be stuck with Trubshaw when he gets back,” which made them laugh.

I hadn’t expected anyone to ask Kivrin about 1348 straight away, but Andrew did, that very evening. “Miss Engle?” he said, rising as she passed our table in Hall. She turned to look at him expectantly. “One of the other students told me you’d been to the Black Death. Is that true?”

I mentally kicked myself for bringing it up. Kivrin is used to being asked about Ashencote by now, but she’s still not fond of it. She eyed me briefly, then answered, “Yes. I expect the student in question must be Mr. Templer, as he was there also.”

I’d thought that might squash Andrew’s enthusiasm, but he grinned and said, “So, what was he like then?” I considered taking refuge under the table, but concluded that would give Andrew too much of an advantage. If I didn’t react at all, embarrassing me would be far less satisfying.

Kivrin gave me a considering look and said, “He was… a welcome sight.” I relaxed slightly, and Kivrin must have seen that because she smiled mischievously and added, “And much shorter, of course. Good thing you’ve finally grown into those feet, Templer.”

I picked up a roll to shy at her, but she gave me a warning look and jerked her head slightly in the direction of the High Table. Trubshaw was there. Damn. She smiled and passed on her way, and Andrew resumed his seat.

“Do you know all of the dons?” Taki said.

“Of course not. It’s mostly Mr. Dunworthy’s old students,” I explained. Andrew seemed satisfied at last, and our conversation turned to speculation about Taki’s chances of getting Phoebe to go on a date.

True to Kivrin’s warning, I didn’t have nearly so much time for retrieval work as I’d hoped. Research had identified the dead Wren from Ave Maria Lane as Lt. Dorothy Peyton. Going back over Dunworthy’s report at the time, he’d bumped into a Wren near St. Paul’s. Was it the same one? I’d been sifting through newspaper articles and records, but still hadn’t found anything useful about the incident. Perhaps if I looked up all the women serving with Peyton at the time, and then searched for their letters or diaries?

Why can’t we at least go back to the 1950s, I thought, and then told myself, Because that would make things too easy. Damn. If Ned were right, shouldn’t the continuum be making things easier for me, rather than harder? If we were “just along for the ride,” why wasn’t the bloody thing taking us anywhere we needed to go?

December 2060

By the end of Michaelmas term, everyone had grown bored with teasing me about being “Dunworthy’s boy,” as Kivrin had predicted. Trubshaw still called on me far too often for my liking, as if hoping to demonstrate my placement in advanced courses was a mistake, but I’d fallen back on a strategy suggested by Verity.

“Be a bit dim,” she’d said. I’d looked at her incredulously. “I’m not saying you should get the answers wrong. By all means, you want Trubshaw to think you’re devoted to history and good at it.”

“I am good at it,” I'd protested. “At least I think I am.”

“Yes,” she’d said, smiling gently. “But some academics are positively fierce within their field of knowledge and incredibly woolly and oblivious about everything else. Think of Cummings.”

She'd had a point. Cummings taught my temporal theory course, and was brilliant at it, but rarely paid attention to anything else, including her footwear. It was common knowledge that she’d come to lecture one freezing February morning still wearing bedroom slippers.

“I am not going to wander about Balliol in my pajamas.”

“Of course not,” she'd replied. “But you can pretend to be socially oblivious around Trubshaw. Be pleasant to him, and don’t react to anything he says about Dunworthy or favoritism. As if you only have a History brain, and not a full brain.”

I’d thought it rather mad at the time, but I'd followed her advice all the same, and it seemed to help. Andrew and Taki had asked me why I behaved like an idiot in Trubshaw’s lectures, but Trubshaw himself was not suspicious.

Taki had managed at last to secure a date with Phoebe, which meant Andrew and I lost a whole afternoon’s worth of work to analyzing the aftermath of their date. We progressed from speculating on Taki’s chances of getting a second date to Taki’s chances of getting Phoebe to sleep with him. Andrew, handsome, popular, and rich, was steadily working his way through all the women in our year and seemed full of advice. I found myself wondering if Phoebe and her friends were getting any work done, or whether they were off somewhere discussing Taki.

“And what about you?” Taki said, turning to me. “I never hear you talking about taking out any girls. Or any boys, for that matter.”

“He’s stuck on some girl who isn’t here,” Andrew said.

“Where is she, then?” Taki asked.

1940, I thought, but I didn’t want to explain, so I said, “London.”

“Is she a student, too?” Taki asked.

“A graduate student,” I replied, and instantly regretted it.

“Oooooh,” Andrew and Taki said in unison.

“An older woman,” Andrew said. “I know what you're getting for Christmas.”

“I have an appointment with my tutor,” I lied, and got out of there, fast.

Andrew and all the other freshers left for the Christmas holiday. I stayed on, but moved back to Kivrin’s flat because all the rooms on my staircase would be needed over the break to house prospective students during their interviews. It was difficult for me to believe that a year had passed since I’d visited Oxford for my own interview, and that Dunworthy and Polly had been gone for most of that time.

I thought of Trubshaw’s never-ending insinuations of favoritism and smiled to myself. Dunworthy had been one of the tutors interviewing me that day. He’d asked a don from Brasenose and another from Jesus to sit in for my interview, and for the most part, Dunworthy had let them run the show. From his behavior toward me, no one would have guessed we’d had breakfast together a few hours earlier.

Just before I'd returned to London the following day, Dunworthy had said, “I think it likely you’ll be offered a place at Balliol. However,” he’d continued severely, upon seeing my pleased reaction, “your tendency to skip class so you can come down to Oxford does not serve you well. If you’re sent down or do poorly on your A levels, you may lose your place and have to apply again. If that occurs, be assured that I will personally supervise your education during the intervening year, to ensure your success.”

At the time, I’d been horrified by the prospect of doing a year’s worth of independent study under Mr. Dunworthy’s displeased eye. He’d meant it as a threat, and I’d recognized it as such. Now, though, I saw that statement in a different light. Underneath his sternness had been the willingness to spend time he could ill afford to help me.

I kept looking for ways I could help him, but my progress was painfully slow. I’d located diaries and letters for two of the women in Peyton’s unit, but hadn’t had a chance to read most of them yet. There were simply too many demands on my time.

I wasn’t the only one feeling stretched thin. There was grey in Finch’s hair that hadn’t been there six months earlier, and Kivrin and Badri had new lines in their faces. Verity, usually so placid, was looking strained, although perhaps for a happier reason: she was pregnant, and suffering dreadfully from morning sickness.

Badri and Linna had completed the first update of the temporal map. It hadn’t changed, which meant the drops could continue, but World War II was still closed to us. We’d had a bad scare when Linna noticed an area of markedly increased slippage around one drop, but soon realized the problem was merely road repairs detouring traffic into a little-used lane near the drop. Moving the drop a few hundred feet had taken care of the slippage, although the historian involved complained bitterly about hiking through a muddy field.

Kivrin and I attended the interchurch service on Christmas Eve. For many years, Dunworthy had always read for the service, and Kivrin had asked to take his place. Christmas had been hard for Kivrin ever since our return from the fourteenth century, and I knew she must have been missing Mr. Dunworthy as much as I was.

As Kivrin read about shepherds keeping watch over their flock, I wondered if anyone was keeping watch over Polly and the others. Was it Christmas for them, too? Did they know they were trapped? Were they somehow trying to tell us how to find them? I hoped wherever Polly was, that Mr. Dunworthy or Michael or Merope were with her. I hoped none of them were alone. Polly, I thought, I’m coming. I’m trying. Hang on.

After the service, we went round to Ned and Verity’s for a drink. Several other people were there, including a few students. It was odd to look across the crowded room, and realize that for many of the people there, this was an ordinary Christmas, a good Christmas. Most of them knew we were missing four historians, but their lives weren’t dominated by loss. A year from now, would I be celebrating Polly’s return? Or would I be trying to learn how to live without constantly thinking of what I was missing?

Kivrin came up to me, “Penny for them,” she said.

“Absent friends,” I said.

“Ah,” she diagnosed. “Getting maudlin. One drink too many. Come along, it’s time we went home.”

I walked her back to the flat, then told her I wanted to walk a bit more.

“Are you all right?” she said, looking up at me in concern.

“Yes,” I said. “I won’t stay out long. I just need some fresh air.”

I walked over to Balliol. Here and there, I could hear the voices of people returning home in twos and threes. Clearly, Ned and Verity hadn’t been the only ones who’d invited people over for some Christmas cheer.

I let myself into Mr. Dunworthy’s rooms without turning on the light. I did all my research here, away from Andrew’s prying eyes, and sometimes came here to study when there was too much noise on my staircase.

I made my way in the darkness over to the window seat. I’d slept on one my first day in Oxford. It seemed a lifetime ago now. I hadn’t even known Dunworthy then, but he’d offered to take me off Great-aunt Mary’s hands and I’d gone with him as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I’d curled up on the window seat to nap and woken with a blanket spread over me. In the middle of an epidemic, Dunworthy had even managed Christmas presents for me. He’d been that way ever since, seeing to my needs in little ways without making a fuss of it.

“Happy Christmas, Mr. Dunworthy,” I said to the still air. “Happy Christmas, Polly.”

I wept.

Kivrin was waiting up for me when I got in. Her brow furrowed as she took in my bleak expression and reddened eyes. Don’t tell me they’re all right, I thought. Don’t remind me this is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t, for Christ’s sake, tell me things will get better or anything else cheery or I’ll probably sick up on the carpet.

I should have remembered how sensitive Kivrin is to my moods, despite her outward toughness. “I’ve not given up and neither have you,” she said firmly, pressing a glass of water into my hand. “That’s enough to be going on with. Drink your water; you’ll feel wretched in the morning if you get dehydrated.” She said good night, and for the first time that Christmas Eve, I felt strength instead of weakness. We might suffer, but we would endure.

Chapter Text

April 2061

By April, the retrieval team had set up four old-fashioned blackboards in Mr. Dunworthy’s sitting room. I’d no idea where Finch had acquired them; perhaps there was truth to the rumor that the University never discarded anything. A common complaint amongst the retrieval team had been that there were simply too many papers, photographs, and computer files to wade through. We’d taken to writing weekly and sometimes daily summaries of the material we’d seen. Each blackboard was dedicated to one of the missing historians and contained information we thought most important at the time.

Mr. Dunworthy’s board, for example, had a list of all the drops he’d known about and might try to access. None of them had opened in the past year, but Badri had a program that tested all of them at least twice a day, and more frequently on days when the net was less busy.

I’d made my way through the diaries and letters of some of the Wrens who’d known Lt. Peyton, but hadn’t turned up anything useful. I'd thought I might be able to find more letters if I traveled back to the 1960s or 1970s, but the retrieval team had voted down that idea.

“If we can pinpoint a location for retrieving specific papers, I’ll have one of my historians do it,” Ned had offered. “You can’t visit the same time twice, and you may want those days for something more important later on.”

I’d reluctantly agreed with him. By March, I’d spent months trying to determine whether Dunworthy’s interaction with Lt. Peyton was obviously significant, but the only thing I’d accomplished was improving my ability to read twentieth-century handwriting.

Putting that to one side, I’d begun reading personal ads in the London papers, starting in September of 1940. During the war, the newspapers had been full of personal ads, and I’d wondered if some of them could have been messages from our missing historians. I took a few minutes to jot down two of the messages on blackboards before the rest of the retrieval team arrived for our next meeting.

While we were eating Indian takeaway, I pointed to Polly’s board. “I found this ad three days ago,” I said. The ad read, “R.T. Can’t wait to see you, darling. Meet me Trafalgar Square noon Friday. Love, Pollykins.”

“R.T.?” Ned said. “Could stand for ‘retrieval team’. And Pollykins might be our Polly.”

“True, but R.T. could stand for a lot of things,” Verity said.

“And there’s this one,” I said, moving to Michael’s board. “Gold ring, lost in Oxford Street, inscribed ‘Time knoweth no bounds.’ Reward. Contact M. Davies, 9 Beresford Court, Kensington.”

“Oh, my,” Kivrin said, leaning forward. “That does look like a message for us.”

“9 Beresford Court is not on Mr. Dunworthy’s list of forbidden addresses, so Polly might be boarding there. And the ad mentions Oxford Street, where she was planning to work,” I said. “This was printed in early January of 1941, months after Dunkirk. What if Michael discovered his drop wouldn’t open, and went to London because he knew Polly would be there? This ad could be telling us the two of them are together, in Kensington.”

“They’re safe,” Badri said to himself. He’d run thousands of attempted retrievals in the past year. I couldn’t tell whether he was frustrated or encouraged by the idea that we’d placed two of the historians he was trying to retrieve. “We’ve been trying to find alternate drop locations near the drops that won’t function, on the off chance that one of our historians will recognize the shimmer. I’ll take the Dover area off the list for now and concentrate more on Kensington.”

Which meant he must be desperate. The drops wouldn’t open if contemps could see them. The chance of an historian walking past a previously unknown drop, alone, just as the drop opened, was infinitesimal, especially in London.

“So we appear to have an approximate location for one or more of our historians,” Finch said. “And we can’t get there.”

“On the plus side,” Ned said, “we haven’t seen any unusual slippage on the drops we’re doing and the temporal map is stable. I'd say that’s an indication that Ishiwaka’s theory is wrong. If we wait long enough, the drops may open again. It’s just a matter of knowing where and when to look for them when the opportunity arises.”

“TJ’s been working on a simulation that may help us locate new drop sites,” Badri said. “I’ve told him to look for any location in the United Kingdom, assuming that our retrieval team could travel to London, if necessary. Do you think we should go farther afield?”

Finch said, “Not just yet, since travel to and from England would be problematic.” He paused, and then said with some reluctance, “On another matter, a suggestion has been made by the Head of History that we should hold a memorial service for our lost historians.”

“No,” several of us said simultaneously.

“Lost isn’t dead,” Kivrin said.

“I’m afraid Trubshaw has his mind set on it,” Finch said.

“Let him, then. I’m not attending,” Badri said, and Kivrin nodded in agreement.

“He’ll likely make attendance compulsory,” I said. “That would be like him.”

Verity said, “I think we should all attend.” I gawped at her and but she continued serenely, “In fact, I think we should plan it ourselves.” She glanced at her husband and said, “Rather like a séance.”

Ned grinned, and said, “Without the bulldog.”

“Bulldogs optional,” Verity said. “But cats… most definitely.”

I suspect Trubshaw’s idea of a memorial service would have been a staid and depressing funeral-like event intended to bury our missing historians in thought if not in deed, but Ned put paid to that by whispering a few words in Lady Schrapnell’s ear. An undergraduate who’d been waiting to see Trubshaw told me he’d been there when she swept in to tell Trubshaw to leave it all to her, she was taking all the tedious details out of his hands, and of course they’d be using the cathedral. Trubshaw had been unable to finish a coherent sentence in her presence. The undergraduate had never witnessed Lady Schrapnell at work before, and was now considering a shift to Classics.

On the day of the service, Kivrin and I arrived early, as instructed. Lady Schrapnell, extensively briefed by Ned and Verity, had decreed there would be no processional. The organist was already playing softly as an usher led us to our seats in the front of the nave.

I was sorely tempted to twist around to look for Trubshaw’s arrival. Kivrin, likely sensing my restlessness, occupied my attention by identifying the musical selections. Either she and Verity had chosen them together, or she was toying with me. I knew the Anglican hymnal contained its share of oddities, but had difficulty believing there was truly a hymn titled “When a Knight Won His Spurs.”

Trubshaw arrived with Lady Schrapnell while the organist was playing “Where True Love is Present.” He must have been reassured by the idea of using the new cathedral, because he looked pompous and grave. He had a sheaf of papers with him, as if he’d been expecting to speak. Each time he started to look around the cathedral, Lady Schrapnell took his arm and made some remark demanding his attention.

At first glance, everything should have met with his approval. All of History had turned out, including historians from other colleges and former students who’d taken the day off to come to Oxford. I recognized students and dons from other disciplines as well, and was freshly reminded of just how many people knew and respected Mr. Dunworthy, although I was sure some of them must have come to remember the other historians, too. Polly’s mother, Merope’s father, and Michael’s parents all had come. Although academic dress had been requested rather than required, nearly everyone was turned out in their best. Professional vidders stood outside the chapels, capturing everything in the nave. It looked and sounded eminently respectable.

Trubshaw frowned slightly as he glanced down at his order of service. I guessed that “A Celebration of Time Travel” was not a title he would have chosen. His face smoothed as the choir stood up. Kivrin whispered, “Rutter Requiem,” in my ear as the organist shifted seamlessly from a hymn into the introduction for an anthem.

I snatched Kivrin’s order of service out of her hand, and saw that a movement from a requiem was listed. So that was why she’d maneuvered me out of taking one. I glared at her, but she said softly, “It’s all right,” just as the choir began to sing.

At first, I was furious. I refused to think of the historians as dead and was outraged by the notion of a requiem. The anthem began, low, intense, and pleading, as the choir sang, “Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.” As the psalm unwound, though, the music gradually left behind its dark tone and eventually blossomed into a joyous confidence in redemption, before returning to its original plea, which no longer sounded distraught. Although the text was about sin and forgiveness, I sensed a more generic message about feeling desperately lost yet unshakably sure of eventual rescue. They will be restored to us, I thought, and realized Kivrin or Verity had got it exactly right.

The choir sat down, but the organist continued, gently playing incidental music as Lady Schrapnell made her way to the lectern to begin her welcoming remarks. I was so busy watching Trubshaw, seated just ahead of me and to my left, that I paid little attention to Lady Schrapnell’s speech. Afterwards, Kivrin told me Lady Schrapnell had talked at some length about the importance of History and how time travel had revolutionized its study. She’d gone on to recount the story of how Time Travel had helped her realize her dream of rebuilding Coventry Cathedral. After she finished, we stood to sing “God is Working His Purpose Out.”

After the hymn, Kivrin turned to me and hissed, “Sit on your hands,” in my ear, then she and Badri made their way to the lectern.

Badri read the Parable of the Lost Sheep. I’d wanted to do it, but Verity had turned me down flat. “You’re too vulnerable,” she’d said. “Trubshaw can make our lives miserable in small ways, although I think he won’t attempt anything serious because of Lady Schrapnell. He might trump up some excuse, though, to have you sent down. I don’t want you to do anything other than attend.”

Trubshaw had started fidgeting during Lady Schrapnell’s speech. Now, it was clear he realized the somber little memorial service he’d intended was going off the rails.

“I’m Kivrin Engle,” Kivrin said, as soon as Badri had finished the reading. “I was supposed to do my practicum in 1320, but there was a mistake, and I ended up in 1348, just as the plague arrived. I… can’t begin to describe how trapped I felt. I knew the people around me were in deadly peril, and I wanted to help them, but nothing… nothing worked. When I missed my rendezvous, I was frantic. I was afraid no one would ever come to rescue me.

“But at the end, while I was trying to bury the last victim—the last person left in the village, other than myself—I realized Mr. Dunworthy would come for me, no matter what it cost him. And he did. He was recovering from influenza and pneumonia, and still in hospital, but he and Badri, who’d already had a relapse trying to locate me, snuck out of hospital. Both of them risked their lives, but they brought me home. I mean to do the same for our missing historians. However long it takes. No matter what it costs.”

Someone in the back began clapping, and the applause quickly spread through the nave. The muscles in Trubshaw’s neck had gone rigid and he was looking about, as if taking names. I figuratively sat on my hands and tried to look bewildered by the applause. I wondered if Verity had designated someone to begin clapping, and for the first time understood why she’d wanted me to sit in the front with Kivrin.

As Badri and Kivrin returned to their seats, Verity rose. The organist stopped playing as she slowly made her way to the lectern. In the silence, the sound of high-pitched meowing could be heard coming from the Smiths' Chapel. Several people turned their heads to look, and I could hear chuckling.

Verity smiled and said, “Yes. As you might have guessed, I’m Verity Kindle, and I broke the continuum.” A few people laughed openly, but Trubshaw was not one of them. After the rustling died down, she continued. “Three-and-a-half years ago, I brought a cat forward through the net. That’s supposed to be impossible. Some of the drops were having trouble with excessive slippage, and we thought I’d caused an incongruity that might have damaged the continuum beyond repair. Drops weren’t opening and historians were being sent to unexpected locations. We thought the net was breaking down.

“And then, it started working again. TJ Lewis—yes, that Lewis—created a series of sims which indicated the net malfunctions were part of a self-correction, and I hadn’t caused an incongruity at all. By taking the cat, I’d unwittingly done my part to repair an incongruity that will take place here, in this very cathedral, six hundred years from now. Everyone who was stuck or had been sent to the wrong place returned home safely, and thanks to TJ and Finch, we learned something about the net we hadn’t known before: that significant objects on the verge of destruction become nonsignificant. As a result, we’ve recovered valuable artifacts believed to be irretrievably lost and have begun repopulating an extinct species.

“Some theorists believe our present inability to access World War II is a sign of damage. Others feel it’s a self-correction of some sort, and the net will re-open someday. If you look about you, you’ll see we’ve graciously been allowed to place exhibits in the side chapels. Some of these exhibits explain time travel and incongruities, and some are dedicated to our missing—not lost—historians. Lady Schrapnell has generously provided luncheon for everyone, in the pavilion set up outside the cathedral. We’ve been asked not to bring food and drink into the cathedral, but do feel free to go back and forth all afternoon.”

We stood and sang “Lord of All Hopefulness.” Afterwards, Verity glanced around the cathedral, waiting for silence to fall. Catching my eye, she told the congregation, “Time knoweth no bounds. Go in peace,” and the organ began the recessional.

Trubshaw looked like he wanted to eviscerate someone, but Lady Schrapnell immediately collared Verity and Kivrin and said, “My dears, that was exactly the service I had in mind. Thank you for following my instructions so faithfully.” Turning to Trubshaw, she said, “Shall we have luncheon first, or visit the exhibits?”

Trubshaw muttered something ungracious about having important work to do. Lady Schrapnell smiled blandly at him and said, “Then Ned can take me round. Thank you so much for your company, Professor Trubshaw.” After he’d stamped off, she said, “What an unpleasant little man. Surely the department can find someone with better manners. Ned, I believe we’ll start with luncheon,” and took Ned away with her.

Verity turned to me and said, “Would you like to meet Polly’s mother? I’ve told her you helped Polly with her prep.”

Did I? I’d already seen her from a distance, and the resemblance to Polly was painfully obvious. I’d felt I was looking at Polly, thirty years on. What could I say to her, since “I’m madly in love with your daughter” was clearly off the list?

Nevertheless, I nodded, and to my relief found that Polly’s mum was as easy to talk to as Polly herself. She’d been sitting with Merope’s and Michael’s relatives, so Verity and Kivrin and I took them all round the exhibits, including the enclosure in the Smiths' Chapel full of kittens.

Each of our missing historians had an exhibit describing their careers and last known locations, but the thing that stayed with me most were the photographs and anecdotes Verity had collected under Lady Schrapnell’s aegis. Most of the photographs were casual, and chosen not because they were especially flattering but because they’d captured the historian’s personality.

Looking at them, I was shamed. I’d spent the last year looking for Polly and Mr. Dunworthy and had scarcely thought of Merope and Michael as people. To me, they’d been little more than names, facts, some other way to possibly reach the people I loved. Now, I was reminded that they’d had families and friends, and reading the remembrances people had written brought them to life. I vowed that from now on, they would be personal and real to me.

In Mr. Dunworthy’s exhibit, I saw a photograph of him from the early days of Time Travel, looking very young and gangly. He couldn’t have been much older than I was. I wondered if he’d bumped into the Wren yet.

There was a photograph of him tutoring a pair of students. In this picture, he looked to be about forty. It was the sort of photograph Oxford puts in its brochures, but Dunworthy had an intent look and the ghost of a smile on his face, indicating that he’d actually been teaching at the time, rather than posing. I was reminded of my informal lessons with him, and how his voice changed when teaching. He’d always sounded as if he were sharing a wonderful treasure with me. Looking at the photograph, I could almost hear him again.

There were two photographs of me in his exhibit. The first was one I’d never seen. Judging by my height, I must have been about fifteen at the time. Dunworthy and I were walking away from the camera, chatting to each other. One of his hands was resting lightly on my back. Dunworthy’s boy, I thought.

The second photograph I recognized immediately, as it had stood on the mantel in his sitting room for years. Kivrin had taken it when I was twelve, the first summer I’d spent in Oxford. Dunworthy had been teaching me to build a fire without a flint. I’d just got the fire to catch, and was looking at him excitedly while he smiled back at me. I thought of all the things he’d taught me and missed him intensely.

To my surprise, Polly’s exhibit also had a photograph with me in it. I’d no idea who’d taken it, but in the photograph, we were looking over some papers together, no doubt one of the many lists I’d compiled for her. My head was bent over the paper and I was pointing something out, while Polly looked at me fondly.

I turned away abruptly, as my eyes began to fill with tears. She did like me, and not just as her errand boy. If only I’d been older…

I would get older, perhaps a good deal older, before she returned. And she would return. Anything else was unthinkable.

We went out to the pavilion and enjoyed an excellent luncheon together. Afterwards, I returned to the Drapers' chapel alone, to visit Polly’s exhibit again.

I was staring once more at the picture of us when a voice behind me said, “Patience is a virtue, cultivated by the wisest of men.”

“Excuse me?” I said, turning around. I was looking at a tall dark-haired man, about thirty years old.

“It’s something my tutor used to say to me all the time,” he said. “I’m afraid I was rather impetuous as a student. If they’ve heard the saying at all, most people only seem to know the ‘patience is a virtue’ part. My tutor always said that it’s the ‘cultivated by the wisest of men’ bit that’s important, because it reminds us that patience is something we have to work at, and that wise men consider it worth the effort. Frightfully sorry; I shouldn’t have disturbed your thoughts. Please excuse me.”

He left the chapel, while I stared after him, wondering if I’d just seen an historian.

At dinner that evening, the memorial service was the main topic of conversation. For many of the students, it was the first time they’d ever held a kitten or even seen one close to. That, I’d expected. What surprised me was how many of the students had been only dimly aware that four of our historians were trapped in the past.

“Surprisingly decent of Trubshaw to have set up a service like that,” Taki said. I turned to stare at him as other students murmured in agreement.

They didn’t know, I realized. They’d no idea the service had been the polar opposite of what Trubshaw had intended, and that Verity and Kivrin had no doubt angered him by sidestepping his intentions. I wasn’t sure whether the wellspring of his anger was offended propriety or insecurity over his position as Acting Head, but I’d been close enough to him in the cathedral to witness his unmistakable fury.

Until today, they’d had no awareness of the work going on behind the scenes to retrieve our missing historians. They still didn't know all the details of the long months Badri and Linna and TJ had put into creating temporal maps, or the time Kivrin and Verity had spent scouring letters and news articles about St. Paul's, hoping to find some hint of Dunworthy or the others. I let the chatter drift around me, feeling isolated by secret knowledge.

Andrew nudged me in the side. “Did you see that message about ‘Time knoweth no bounds’? That’s what Kindle said for the benediction. I thought it rather odd at the time, but that message is pretty exciting, isn’t it? Did you see it?”

See it? I bloody found it, I thought. “Yes,” I said.

“We’re going to find them,” Taki said enthusiastically, and I suddenly understood Verity’s efforts had been about far more than dodging a depressing ritual.

June 2061

Trubshaw was in a foul mood for several days after the memorial service. Thanks to Verity’s protectiveness, there was nothing he could accuse me of, but being an ever-present reminder of Dunworthy was apparently enough to irritate him. I wondered if his enmity with Mr. Dunworthy were a one-sided affair. If not, I looked forward to questioning Dunworthy about it when he came home. Although I was successfully maintaining the dim-witted façade Verity had suggested, I’d grown tired of being targeted for unknown reasons. Luckily, my time with Trubshaw was drawing to a close.

He kept me after class one day to inform me that the preliminary examinations I’d taken the previous year didn’t count and would have to be done again. I think he was expecting me to be angry or upset, but I put on my best innocent expression and said, “Yes, sir. I rather thought that would be the case. Thank you for telling me.”

In fact, Verity and I had discussed it with Finch beforehand and thought there was a decent chance of overruling Trubshaw in the matter of exams, but we’d decided it wasn’t worth the effort. From my point of view, I was mainly annoyed because revising for the exams cut into my research time. I was still working my way through all the London newspapers I could get my hands on and had read as far as May of 1941. I’d had a bad time of it two days after the memorial service, when I discovered a death notice for a Mike Davis from mid-January in one of the newspapers. For the next three days, I’d frantically combed through personal ads whenever possible, looking for any mention of Beresford Court or gold rings. I’d eventually found what I’d been looking for in a paper from late January: “Gold ring, lost in Oxford Street, inscribed ‘Time knoweth no bounds.’ Reward. Contact M. Ward, 14 Cardle Street, Kensington.”

M. Ward! Was Merope in London, too? Was Polly alone in Kensington and merely using the names of other historians for her ads? Why was the address different? I hastily looked up Cardle Street, and found that it was near Beresford Court, and also not on the forbidden list. Had Polly moved? What if the ads were being placed by Merope?

I shared my findings with the retrieval team, and we put the ad on Merope’s blackboard with a question mark. We discussed the death notice, and whether it might be an error. So far, I hadn’t encountered any more ads from M. Davies that would have indicated his survival, but bodies had sometimes been difficult to identify. We agreed that at least one historian was trying to send us messages, but beyond that could draw no firm conclusions.

As the end of term approached, conversation among the first-year students revolved around two topics: the upcoming exams, and whether or not to live in college next year. It was common for second-year students to live out and return to college during their final year. I’d already decided to move into a private flat, and Kivrin had promised to help me search for one after my exams. I’d considered sharing with someone, but had decided I’d get more work done if I lived alone.

I’d also considered taking up residence in Mr. Dunworthy’s rooms, but Trubshaw was trying to persuade Balliol that Dunworthy’s rooms should be emptied and given to some other don. Finch had counter-attacked by writing a memo explaining that Dunworthy’s rooms were being used by Time Travel as a work area for the retrieval team. If that plan failed, Kivrin was going to claim Mr. Dunworthy’s rooms as her own.

Although I wasn’t worried about my exams, I was definitely in the minority. The noise level on my staircase dropped steadily as the exams approached. Even Andrew was working for a change. I’d begun to worry he might not pass his exams. Unless he was absolutely brilliant, he hadn’t been putting enough effort into his essays, judging by how much time he spent writing them. He certainly spent less time on them than I did, and some of my essays had been slightly revised versions of work I’d originally done for Mr. Dunworthy.

I found myself becoming increasingly irritated with Andrew’s lax study habits. If he didn’t work a good deal harder, he would fail his exams and then… find himself under Dunworthy’s personal supervision, my conscience supplied. Good Lord, what a difference a year could make. I wondered what sort of student I would have been if Dunworthy had brought Polly back from 1940 that first day. At the least, I would have been made to rewrite every substandard essay after receiving a pointed lecture about living up to my potential.

One afternoon, Andrew declared, “We’ve been working too hard. It freezes the brain. There’s a dance tonight in Headington. Let’s go for a few hours. We might meet some pretty girls.”

“I really need to work,” I said, thinking of the newspapers.

“For Christ’s sake, have you taken a vow of celibacy or something?” he asked. “Who is this amazing creature you’re saving yourself for? I don’t believe she exists. And if she does, she’ll never know.”

“We’re not discussing this,” I told him.

To my surprise, he let it drop. I should have known, though, that he hadn’t given up. That evening at dinner, he stopped Kivrin as she passed us. He’d done it so often that she expected it by now. I’d asked her why she didn’t take a different path to her seat on the nights she chose to eat in Hall, and she’d told me, “But then I wouldn’t have the fun of embarrassing you.”

Tonight, he rose from his seat as she approached, and she paused before he’d even spoken. “Miss Engle…”

“Have a seat, Mr. Pearson.” He did, and she said, “You have something to say?”

“It’s Templer, ma’am.”

“Imagine my surprise,” she said dryly.

“Does he truly have a girl in London?” he asked.

“And this would be your concern because...?” she said.

“He doesn’t ever go out with girls, and I wondered—”

“Mr. Pearson, allow me to offer a personal observation. Not everyone is able to fit their brain in their trousers. Unlike certain other students of my acquaintance, Mr. Templer’s goal is to take a First in History, not a First in Shagging. When last I inquired, the latter degree was not yet offered at Oxford, which, I concede, is tragically behind the times. I recommend you focus your attention on the exams you will need to pass in order to remain here, and put Mr. Templer’s amour out of your mind. And yes, she does exist. I’ve met her.”

Kivrin went on her way and left Andrew to puzzle out what she’d said. Next to me, Taki was giggling maniacally.

“Oh, shut it, you,” Andrew said to Taki. “What did she mean about fitting one’s brain in one’s trousers?” Taki doubled over laughing, and I shot an embarrassed but grateful look at Kivrin, who’d paused to turn and smirk at me.

August 2061

Andrew stayed down for the summer to re-sit his prelims. I saw him occasionally in Hall, but never in the Bodleian. He seemed no more worried about losing his place at Oxford than he’d been in June. He’d rented a house in Oxford that he planned to share with several friends, including Taki and Phoebe. Andrew had encouraged me to join them, but I’d declined. I wondered how Taki and Phoebe would react to the endless procession of girlfriends, past and present, stopping by to look for Andrew. At first, I’d found living next door to him mildly entertaining, but the constant interruptions had eventually become grating.

Finding a decent flat of my own hadn’t been nearly so much of a struggle as I’d feared. It was minuscule, but fairly close to Kivrin’s and to Balliol. Although Kivrin had agreed it was time I lived on my own, she expected me to visit on a regular basis. If nothing else, she said, my skills in the kitchen needed improvement, so I went round her flat a few times a week to cook with her after my lessons.

I’d passed my prelims with distinction and was officially free of academic responsibilities, but Kivrin was privately tutoring me in medieval history, which meant I still didn’t have as much time for research as I would have wished. I’d worked my way through the rest of 1941 in the London newspapers I could access in Oxford. I’d encountered a few ads here and there that might have been significant, but nothing that had been obviously written by an historian. Had they died during the Blitz? Or had we managed to retrieve them?

I decided to start reviewing newspapers near Dover and Backbury to see if Michael or Merope had left any ads in 1940 before going to London. If they’d gone to London at all. I was becoming increasingly frustrated with our lack of progress and my inability to dredge up solid information. I said as much to Kivrin one evening, and the next time I turned up for my lesson she took me with her to visit Verity and the baby.

James Edward wasn’t the only new addition to the Kindle/Henry household. They'd got a bulldog puppy that seemed intent on devouring my toes. Fortunately, they were well protected by my shoes for the time being, but it was difficult to move about with a puppy attached to my foot.

“Cyril,” Verity said sternly. “We do not chew people.” Cyril released me, looking suitably chastened, while Penwiper regarded Cyril with feline disdain from a safe distance. I looked down at my rather damp and freshly ventilated footwear. Luckily, they were old shoes. “I’m sorry, Colin,” Verity apologized.

“Whatever possessed you to get a puppy just now?” Kivrin said, laughing.

“Ned and I have been wanting a bulldog for ages, and with James, it’s clear we won’t be going on assignment together again for a good long while. We thought we might as well get all the poo and sleeplessness over with at the same time. Honestly, I don’t know which one is more work just now.”

Cyril was eyeing my shoes again with definite interest. “Cyril, it’s not on,” I said. He cocked his head at me, drooling amiably, then turned to Verity for her opinion.

“Definitely not, Cyril,” she said, and he slumped to the floor and plopped his head down on his paws.

Verity looked all in. I wondered if Ned were just as exhausted, and concluded he probably was. When she looked at James, though, some of the tiredness went out of her face, although there were still dark circles under her eyes.

“My mother says I should only feel undead for another month or so,” Verity said, apparently reading my thoughts. She placed the baby in my arms. Unlike Cyril, he didn’t seem inclined to eat me. He didn’t appear to have any inclinations whatsoever.

“When do they get, er…” I said, looking down at James.

“Interesting?” Kivrin said. “Give him another month or two.” Turning to Verity she said, “I’ve come round to discuss Colin’s education.”

My head snapped up. I’d wondered if this were more than a social call.

“Summer lessons not going well?” Verity asked.

“As far as the lessons themselves, he’s doing splendidly, as usual,” Kivrin said. “He’s getting rather frustrated with how little time any of us have to devote to the retrieval effort.”

“He is in the room and quite capable of speaking for himself,” I said.

“Speak, then,” Kivrin said. “You want to specialize in Twentieth Century so you can find Polly. You want to specialize in Medieval so you’ll be ready to resume your preferred career after you find Polly. You want to spend your time now doing research to locate Polly. You’re looking nearly as ragged as Ned and Verity. Things can’t go on like this. You need to decide what’s most important to you.”

“If this is about my social life—” I began awkwardly.

“It’s not,” Verity said. “It’s about the amount of sleep you’re not getting. Kivrin and I have talked, and we think you need to let something go.”

“I am not giving up on the retrieval effort,” I said hotly, and James squirmed in my arms. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset him.”

“It’s not that,” Verity said. “I expect he's wanting a feed, and likely a fresh nappy. Speaking of which, could you take Cyril out for a moment while I change James?”

I escorted Cyril to the back garden, wondering why I’d become so angry. I knew I was trying to do too much. I just didn’t see how I could let go of anything.

It hadn’t been this bad during term-time. What had changed? I had, I thought. After moving into the flat, I’d been so excited by the prospect of having more research time and fewer distractions that I’d kept pushing myself more and more. During term-time, I hadn’t expected so much of myself, and the previous summer, Kivrin must have kept me on a more reasonable schedule with actions so subtle I hadn’t been aware of them. I’d thought that living alone meant dealing with landlords and cooking. I hadn’t realized I’d need to learn how to budget myself as well as my finances.

By the time I brought Cyril in, we’d had another earnest discussion about chewing. Verity had settled James in the crook of her arm and was nursing him. “So,” she said. “Something needs to go. Not necessarily permanently. If you want to continue being tutored by Kivrin, you need to accept you won’t have much time for retrieval research. If the research is more important to you, then you need to cut back on the time you spend with Kivrin. If you can’t do either, it’s not too late to change your focus from Twentieth Century to Medieval.”

“I don’t know what to say,” I told her.

“Let’s look at it from another angle,” Kivrin suggested. “What did you have in mind for your practicum? Medieval or Twentieth Century? If it’s Twentieth Century, do you want to do something after World War II that might also help the retrieval effort, or something before World War II, so you won’t use any days you might need later? And do you want to go straight to graduate school, or were you hoping to work full-time on the retrieval effort?”

“I… I’m not sure,” I said, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the possibilities. “I’d rather work on the retrieval effort than go to graduate school, assuming they’re not back before then. But my practicum… do I truly have to decide now?”

“Not the specific decade, but the general period, perhaps,” Verity said. “If you decide your practicum will be Twentieth Century, you could do fewer lessons with Kivrin, which would allow you time to do research and sleep. Or if you want to go with Medieval, you wouldn’t have to do so much Twentieth Century prep.”

“But I need it,” I said. Cyril came over to me, and flopped down on my shoes. He gave one of my shoes a tentative lick with the tip of his tongue, then looked up at me. “No,” I said smiling, and picked him up to scratch behind his ears. “What do you think I should do?” I asked Kivrin.

“Colin,” she said, “If you want to stop tutoring with either one of us, that’s certainly a valid solution and we’ll make it work. In your place, though… I think I would learn as much history as I could, and cut back on the retrieval research. Not because it’s less important, but because it doesn’t do us much good to know where the historians are if we can’t reach them. If we could access World War II, the retrieval team would be moving heaven and earth to pinpoint the location of the missing historians. With that time period closed to us… it’s not as urgent a concern. We haven’t figured out a way to make the net open, although Badri and TJ are looking into it.”

“So you think I should give up?” I said.

“No,” Verity and Kivrin said simultaneously.

“I don’t think you should stop altogether,” Kivrin said. “And if the net opens tomorrow, we’ll reassess your priorities. I’m going to insist you cut back on something, but only you can choose which thing it is.”

I sighed heavily, looking down at Cyril, who was licking one of my hands as if trying to decide whether it was a chewable object. “Don’t even think it,” I said to him. What would Dunworthy say? It’s only two more years. Less than that, even. And the net might open before then. “All right,” I said. “I’ll cut back on the research, but only until the net opens.”

October 2061

Once I’d resigned myself to a more leisurely schedule, things seemed to get better, despite my snail-like progress. Part of it was purely physical—getting more sleep was definitely helping—but most of it was acknowledging I was tackling an enormous problem that didn’t have to be solved instantly. The problem didn’t have to be solved alone, either, although the others on the retrieval team were carrying heavier burdens than I. As the months passed, everyday tasks seemed to be weighing us all down and the sharp desperation we’d felt in 2060 was fading to a steady ache.

Andrew had scraped a pass on his preliminary examinations, and I was glad of it. Although he could be immature and careless, I enjoyed his company. Looking back on the sort of person I’d been before 2060, I likely would have been as irresponsible as Andrew, at least until Mr. Dunworthy found out about it. I longed sometimes for a normal life, but didn’t see how I could manage one. If I’d been willing to give up the search, I could have had the semblance of a normal student life—parties and girlfriends and fewer responsibilities—but I couldn't bring myself to do that.

I attended a few lectures with my year, but was mostly taking more advanced courses. I had Cummings again for temporal theory. Few historians opted for a second year of temporal theory, but it seemed likely that I would someday want to question Ishiwaka and other theorists about the net, and I needed to be able to understand and possibly challenge their ideas. I took another course on the net, too, so I could calculate my own drop coordinates, if necessary.

Mercifully, I was no longer taking a course from the loathsome Trubshaw, but I had my Disciplines of History course with Verity. I’d got used to being tutored by her, but she seemed much more formal in lecture. It was amusing to hear my classmates talk about Verity as a don, when I was used to thinking of her as my friend and colleague. Sometimes, though, I felt very alienated by the them-versus-us attitude my classmates had toward the dons, as I was neither “them” nor “us.”

The retrieval team continued to hold meetings, sometimes in Mr. Dunworthy’s rooms and sometimes in restaurants. We were in the back room of a restaurant one evening, cooing over little James, when Finch arrived, looking positively murderous.

“What’s the matter?” Verity said.

“I’m going to see to it that bloody idiot gets the sack for real this time,” Finch answered.

“Eddritch?” Badri asked.

“Eddritch,” Finch confirmed, biting down on the name as if it were a foul word. “Four days ago, Time Travel received an query from Research. Apparently, they’d sent some material to Dunworthy and it had never been returned. They’d contacted Trubshaw’s office several times, without any luck.”

“What sort of material?” I asked.

“I’ll get to that,” Finch said. “My secretary, Harris, double-checked our files and turned up nothing, so she contacted Eddritch herself. Eddritch said yes, he might have the material somewhere but couldn’t be arsed to look for it. He wouldn’t let her look for it, either. Last night, we gained entry to the Head’s office under circumstances into which one need not inquire, and Harris and I had a good search of the place and found it.”

“Found what?” Kivrin asked.

“This,” Finch said, pulling an overstuffed accordion folder out of his case and placing it on the table. “It was sent to Dunworthy just before he left and Eddritch took it with him as something belonging to the Head of History. Trubshaw of course didn’t want it, so it’s been languishing in the back of a filing cabinet all this time.”

“What is it?” I said.

“Letters,” Finch replied. “Lots of them, sent by various parties to the parents of Lt. Dorothy Peyton.”

Chapter Text

January 2062

I'd weathered another Christmas without Polly and Dunworthy. This one had seemed easier to bear, which was in itself depressing. During break, I went down to London for the weekend to take my mother out to dinner. She told me more than I wanted to know about a man she was infatuated with who seemed likely to become her next livein. She asked me whom I was dating, and when I explained about Polly again, she advised me to find a woman I could actually hold, or at least speak to.

I found it tiring to talk to her. We weren’t on hostile terms, but had so little in common that conversation was difficult. In truth, I felt closer to the four historians I was searching for than I did to my own mother. I spent the Tube ride back to Oxford wondering whether that made me a bad son or a good historian.

The missing letters Finch had turned up provided us with a valuable clue. We’d read through dozens of them before finding one from a Lt. Wendy Armitage. It was a condolence letter, like so many of the others, and it clearly stated she’d been on her way to meet Lt. Peyton on the night of her death. Ironically, all the months I’d spent reading the letters and diaries of the Wrens that Peyton worked with had been an utter waste: Lt. Armitage was an old school friend who hadn’t seen Peyton in months.

Some further digging on my part revealed that Armitage had been one of Dilly’s girls, working at Bletchley Park on cracking Ultra. Dunworthy had likely saved her life, and possibly affected the outcome of the war. I’d been told many times that seemingly good actions could have bad outcomes in a nonlinear system, but it was still hard for me to accept that. I put her name and information down on Dunworthy’s board.

I wasn’t the only one with news to report at our next retrieval team meeting. TJ had run endless simulations, comparing the problems around World War II to his Waterloo sim and to a sim based on the data collected at the time of the Kindle Incident.

“They’re not the same,” TJ said, “but there are definite similarities. My best guess is that the self-corrections and the incongruity are both inside the embargoed area. The Kindle Incident had self-corrections and net malfunctions taking place over a span of centuries, but this one is limited to two areas: the World War II era and post-1995. For the Kindle Incident, the incongruity had its focus hundreds of years in the future and all the self-corrections preceded it. Here… it’s only an educated guess, but I’d say the incongruity and major self-corrections are taking place during the World War II era and the post-1995 area is experiencing minor self-corrections.”

“What would a sim of Ishiwaka’s theory look like?” I asked.

“Well, the data would be the same,” TJ said. “These graphs are only snapshots in time. They can show areas where the net isn’t working, but they can’t be used to predict when—or if—a closed area will open again. And they don’t tell us the nature of the self-correction.”

Badri shifted uncomfortably in his seat. After studying temporal theory in general and Ishiwaka’s theory in particular, I knew why. According to Ishiwaka, if the net were collapsing, the self-corrections wouldn’t take the form of historians rescuing drowning cats. They would mean the death of the historians and possibly every contemp they came into contact with. According to Ishiwaka, if the net ever reopened, it might only be after our historians were dead.

“During the Kindle Incident,” Ned said into the silence, “Carruthers was trapped in 1940 for three weeks. The net wouldn’t open.”

“Yes,” TJ said.

“But it didn’t take three full weeks in Oxford to retrieve him,” Ned said.

“No, but it’s time travel,” Badri said, clearly not understanding what Ned was getting at.

“Bear with me, this is going to be a Grand Design argument,” Ned said. “Carruthers had to stay in 1940 for three weeks so he could finish searching the cathedral and tell us the bishop’s bird stump wasn’t there after the air raid. And we were able to retrieve him only when we really needed that piece of information to deduce the location of the bishop’s bird stump. Using the same logic, our historians will be trapped in World War II until they’ve finished their roles in that self-correction, which might only take them a few days. But until we need them to play an active role in the post-1995 self-correction, or until we’ve passed the point where their presence wouldn’t spoil a self-correction, we won’t be able to retrieve them.”

“We’ve no reason to believe the net works that way,” Badri said.

“We’ve no reason to believe it doesn’t, either,” Kivrin countered. “Has anyone asked Cummings about this?”

TJ said, “Yes. We’ve shown her our data multiple times since Dunworthy left. All she’ll tell us is that we don’t have enough data to draw any conclusions.”

“Everything about time travel is chaotic and nonlinear," Verity said. "We’ve all been concerned by how long those areas have been inaccessible to us. What if it doesn’t matter? The Waterloo sims indicate that the size of the self-correction doesn’t have anything to do with the size of the incongruity.”

“TJ,” I said. “Can we tell if the closures are related to the same incongruity? What if it’s a coincidence? Net malfunction is a late indicator of a problem. What if we were already experiencing incongruities and self-corrections in the post-1995 area and didn’t realize it?”

“I don’t have any sims to address that,” TJ said. “The slippage increases before the net closed indicate there’s a much larger self-correction during the World War II era. I’d have to go back to the slippage data to see if there were significant post-1995 slippage increases and whether they preceded the World War II increases.”

“It’s an interesting thought,” Badri said. “We should look into it.”

After the meeting, I grabbed my bicycle and rode back to my flat in a bitter wind, still turning the possibilities over in my head. We’d been focusing on the World War II closure because we had people trapped there, but perhaps we should be looking at the later area, too. Had the post-1995 incongruity existed before we lost the historians in World War II, or had they inadvertently created it? Or were they trapped there to correct it? What if the historians were trapped because we weren’t trying hard enough to fix the problem?

I was still trying to figure out how best to attack the post-1995 incongruity when the automobile hit me.

I woke up in hospital with a screaming headache and my right arm and leg in casts.

“There you are,” a pretty young nurse said. “You’ve had quite a time of it.”

“What?” I said slowly. Even that single word required tremendous effort.

She shushed me, saying, “Rest and let things get better,” so I did.

Kivrin was there the next time I woke, and many other times after that. I felt as if I were drifting endlessly, never quite awake but never fully asleep, either. And yet I dreamed.

Dunworthy was there, angrily telling me off for taking a foolish risk and getting myself hurt, but he seemed to be scolding me for riding my bicycle on the river, which made no sense.

Polly was there, many times, smiling at me fondly, and once she even kissed me, but she was wearing pajamas. Why should that be, when I was the one in hospital?

Merope was there, but told me to call her Eileen, and she looked at me so curiously that I asked her what was the matter. “Nothing,” she said. “Everything will come round right.”

Michael was there, asking me if I’d ever been to St. Paul’s. When I told him no, he said, “Then you must go there. When you do, you’ll understand things.”

Great-aunt Mary was there, and said, “I wish you’d known my sister, Colin. You should know more about your grandmother.”

Mum was there, and introduced me to a new livein, saying, “It’s your father, Colin. Don’t you know him?”

To me, it seemed as if months passed. Finally, there was a day when I truly awoke and was able to hold a conversation.

“You’ve been here almost five days,” Kivrin said. She looked as if she’d spent most of them sitting on the chair next to my bed. “As you can see, your right arm and leg are broken. You dislocated your shoulder, elbow, hip, and knee on the right side and there were internal injuries caused by broken ribs. You also have concussion. The doctor says you’ll be here for a good while yet.”

“My classes…” I said.

“Colin, don’t worry about your bloody classes. You have time to catch up. If necessary, you’ll miss this term.”

“But my exams,” I protested. I’d planned to take some of my finals this year and some next year.

“They’re months away,” she said. “The most important thing is getting you well. You can’t do anything about schoolwork or research until you’re better.”

Even that brief conversation exhausted me. I drifted off, vaguely hoping that if I saw Dunworthy again, he wouldn’t be cross with me.

Things improved slowly. My headache went away, but I had difficulty staying awake for long periods of time and my thinking felt fuzzy and slow. One day, a new doctor stopped by to introduce himself.

“I’m Dr. Ferguson, and I wanted to speak to you about your scars. I see that you’re an historian, and that some scarring may be desirable for your assignments. With special treatment, the scars you’ll have from this accident can be minimized to the point where they will be almost undetectable. Would you like to have them minimized, or would you prefer to revise your scar plan?”

“My what?” I said, wondering if this were another strange dream.

“Your tutor consulted with me on a scar plan, let me see… two years ago,” he said, rifling through a file he’d brought with him. “James Dunworthy. That’s your tutor?”

“No,” I said, with growing confusion. “Mr. Dunworthy’s been trapped in World War II since April of 2060. Verity Kindle’s my tutor. Mr. Dunworthy never told me about a scar plan and I’ve no idea what one is.”

“Oh! Oh, dear,” Ferguson said. “Well, Mr. Dunworthy said you wanted to become a medievalist and thought you’d need some scars for realism. That’s my specialty: minimizing scars that people don’t want, and creating false scars for people who need them.”

“False scars?” I said blankly. “Like makeup?”

“No, they’re real in the sense that they’re actually part of the skin; they can’t be washed off. But they’re fairly shallow. I can give you a positively gruesome scar that will make it look as if you’ve suffered a hideous wound without impacting your mobility or strength the way a true injury might. Mr. Dunworthy was quite firm that your physical abilities not be compromised by scarring. And he was adamant that there be no facial disfiguration. Pity,” he said wistfully, “I’m rather good at missing noses. Have you been circumcised?”

“No,” I said, with some apprehension. “I don’t wish to be, either.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t be necessary. Just the opposite, in fact. I have a colleague who sometimes does restorations for historians traveling to eras where being a Muslim or a Jew is hazardous. Not an issue here, obviously. This,” he said, pulling out a diagram, “is a visual depiction of your scar plan.”

It was a simple drawing of a naked male, front and back, with lines sketched in using various colors. “Different colors indicate the noticeability of the scar,” he said, pointing at the diagram. “Yellow ones, like some of these here on the back of the legs, are barely visible. They’d certainly be noticeable as white against reddened skin if you stepped out of a hot bath, but that’s about it. This one,” he said, indicating a line on the right arm from wrist to shoulder, “is much more obvious. The wine-colored sections above the elbow indicate a deep scar and the purple segments are puckers, to simulate a wound that’s been infected or badly stitched. There’s another deep one on the front of the right thigh, with some medium-depth smallish scars on the lower right arm, and some overlapping stripes across the backside and upper thighs. I wanted to put some on the back as well, but those are more likely to heal badly and cause long-term impairment, so Dunworthy vetoed them. ”

“And you can do that to me? Safely?” I asked, staring at the diagram in horror. Dunworthy had expected me to do this?

“Oh, yes, it’s quite safe. And not that painful, either, as the wounds are simulated under sedation. When the simulated injuries are quite deep or extensive, we keep the patient in hospital during the initial stages of healing, to monitor for infection and ensure that adequate pain medication is provided. So what do you think?”

“Er… perhaps you could explain the rationale behind these scars? This is all new to me.”

Ferguson consulted his notes and said, “Mr. Dunworthy was looking for injuries that could be taken for training or combat injuries if you traveled to the Middle Ages.”

“My area is Twentieth Century just now,” I said. “World War II, specifically, although I do want to go to the Crusades some day.”

“Well, these would likely do for either. Corporal punishment was common in both eras, so the scars on the legs and backside should be the same. Shrapnel leaves a wide variety of wounds, so these sword cuts and arrow wounds would also work.”

“What sort of scars would I have now, that could be used? Assuming you don’t try to minimize them?” I asked.

“Well… there will be a scar on your right arm, here,” he said, sketching it in lightly with a pencil, “but we’d need to extend it or create some additional scars. Dunworthy wanted you to have scarring all the way down to the wrist, so you’d have a wound that would be slightly visible even wearing long sleeves and trousers or hose. He didn’t want me to do much to the hands,” Ferguson said, frowning. “A missing finger-joint or two would have been such a nice touch.”

“And the rest?” I said, suddenly afraid I might wake up from his procedure with several "nice touches". When I signed the consent form, I’d be sure to specify exactly which changes I was authorizing, with a detailed diagram. And perhaps ask Ned to observe the procedure and discourage any improvising.

“The leg scar, where the bone broke through the skin, would be useful, even if it is the shin,” Ferguson said. “I could probably ugly it up for you. The scar from the abdominal surgery could be an arrow wound… yes, I think if we make the natural scars look worse, add a couple of small nicks and burns to the fingers… nothing missing, just some white scars,” he said, at my alarmed expression, “and add some whipping scars to the back of you, that would do nicely.”

“And when would this happen?” I said.

“I prefer to let the natural scars heal fully before we go mucking about,” he said. “We could do you… sometime this summer, perhaps.”

“I’ll speak to my tutor about it,” I said. And verify that you’re actually a doctor, I added mentally.

It turned out that Kivrin had known about the scar plan. “Oh, yes, Dunworthy spoke to me about it,” she said, when I told her about Ferguson. At my surprised look, she said, “You need to remember, Dunworthy expected to be your tutor, but assumed I’d have the teaching of you, as well. It was natural for him to mention it to me, just as Verity and I discuss your education. You don’t have to make a decision about this just now.”

“Verity knows about this, too?” I asked.

Kivrin shook her head. “We haven’t discussed it yet, but we’ll need to do it when we decide on your practicum after you get out of the hospital.”

And there was my cue to be a good little historian and rest. I’d been taller than Kivrin the first time we met, and she barely came up to my chest now, but she was dauntless and intimidating.  I had a sinking feeling she'd be managing every step of my recovery, whether I wanted it or not.

April 2062

By the start of April, the casts were gone and I was walking with a cane. Living alone with an arm and a leg in a cast had seemed impossible, so I’d spent the Hilary term living with Kivrin again. As I'd feared, she’d been a tyrant about my recovery. She’d added a nap to my daily schedule, which was mortifying. What was even more humiliating was how much I’d needed it.

It had taken me months to catch up on missed essays, and I’d done no retrieval research at all. No one on the retrieval team had made any progress since we’d found Armitage’s letter. The temporal map remained unchanged, and TJ hadn’t had any luck determining whether the World War II incongruity was related to the post-1995 one.

I came home on the anniversary of Dunworthy’s departure to find Kivrin in tears. Kiv, my mainstay, had reached the end of her tether. I gathered her into my arms and let her sob.

“Shh, shh,” I soothed, wondering what I could say and realizing that nothing would help, so I held her and waited. After a while, the crying subsided into hiccups and I gave her my handkerchief.

“Nobody carries these anymore,” she said, half-laughing.

“Historians do. Or so Dunworthy always told me. Good for emergency tourniquets and breaking the ice with weeping damsels.”

“I’m not a damsel,” she said.

“You’re not weeping, either. Can I bind up your wound?” I teased gently, wishing to God that I could.

“I don’t even know why I was crying,” she admitted. “It’s just that sometimes…”

“It’s too much,” I said, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. “I’ll make some tea.”

I brought some biscuits with the tea, and set them down in front of her.

“Two years,” she said, as she sat back with a mug.

“Two years for us,” I said. “To them, it may only be a matter of hours.”

“Do you think we’ll really find them?”

I smiled and said, “I’m not giving up, and neither are you. That’s enough to be going on with.”

Except when it wasn’t.

Kivrin was better the next day, of course. I’d expected as much. All of the retrieval team had cycled through varying degrees of optimism and despair. Verity, in an unguarded moment, had once told me, “I almost wish I wouldn’t start hoping again, because it hurts so much when it stops.”

One of my own bad days came not too long after that, when Kivrin unexpectedly presented me with a new bicycle. “You’ll need one,” she said cautiously, seeing my downcast expression. “The old one couldn’t be mended and was getting too small for you.”

“It was a present,” I said.

“From Dunworthy,” she realized. “Oh, Colin…”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“It does,” she said. A silence fell between us, then she said, “Colin, I’m going to tell you something and I don’t want you to be angry.”

“Don’t tell me to quit,” I said warningly.

“Never that,” she said. “Not quite two years ago, when it had become clear that Dunworthy wasn’t coming back right away, I searched his rooms for anything that might give us some clue as to his thought processes.”

“And?”

“He kept diaries. He had for years. I removed them for safekeeping, along with the rest of his papers. I read them, trying to find a better description of his encounter with Lt. Armitage, or of his concerns just before he disappeared, but I read other entries, as well. He loves you very much, Colin.”

“I know that,” I said, grateful that she’d used the present tense.

“Would you like to have them? As something of his?” Kivrin asked tentatively.

“Are they very private?” I said.

“Yes. And no,” she said. “They’re mostly about events and people and theories he had about time travel and history. It’s not like he kept a detailed record of his sex life or anything.”

“Now there’s something I never even want to think about,” I said, and Kivrin giggled.

“I know, it was rather horrible when I first went through them. I mean, you never know about people, and I truly did not want to see anything personal I shouldn’t,” she said, shuddering. “There are some rather catty remarks about other people and lots of stuff about the clever thing you’d just said or the naughty thing you’d just done and so forth.”

“Is there anything in there about Trubshaw?” I asked.

“Trubshaw? I don’t recall, but it wouldn’t surprise me. There were certainly some choice remarks about Eddritch.”

“I shouldn’t,” I said, but knew that I probably would, the next time I despaired of his rescue.

I wanted to resume my retrieval research, but I needed the time for physical therapy. “You should remember what this limp feels like in case you need to fake one later,” the therapist had advised, knowing I was an historian, so I found myself trying to analyze the limp I was working hard to get rid of. I could now bend my leg enough to begin riding a bicycle again, so I started using the bike Kivrin had given me, even if some of the twinges it caused weren’t physical.

As May ended, I moved back into my flat. I was now revising for my first set of finals. I still needed a daily nap, a fact I strove to conceal from everyone. Between living alone and the time I’d spent recovering from the accident, I’d seen very little of my classmates outside of lectures. I felt vaguely guilty about that, which is probably why I let Andrew talk me into going to the party.

He’d cornered me after Verity’s lecture one Friday and said that he and his housemates were having an impromptu party that evening. Most of my year at Balliol would be there, plus some other people. Taki and Phoebe, who were walking with us, encouraged me to come as well. For once in my life, I will behave like a typical student, I thought, and said yes.

When I arrived, the music was already going full blast. It was a wonder the neighbors hadn’t complained. Then again, looking at the crush, the neighbors might be there. The party seemed to be ranging throughout the house and spilling out into the back garden.

Mercifully, Phoebe turned the music down a little so people could talk to each other without actually shouting. Someone pressed a cup of punch into my hand that clearly contained more than fruit juice. Pace yourself, I thought. You don’t want to have another smashup on the way home.

There was a scrum of people dancing in the sitting room. After chatting with a few people, I put my cup down and joined the fray.

We danced for a while, then someone switched off the music and said Andrew and a boy from Jesus were starting a drinking game in the garden. I thought about watching them, but decided I didn’t want to be there when the puking started. After a minute, Phoebe switched the music on again.

After another drink and some more dancing, I realized I needed a rest. My leg was starting to ache. Thinking back, I was surprised it had taken this long to start hurting. Perhaps I hadn’t been pacing myself as well as I’d imagined.

I headed for the kitchen to look for something nonalcoholic to drink. It took an age to force my way through the crowd in the kitchen, but I eventually found a tub of fizzes just outside the back door. A colossal roar told me someone had just won the drinking game.

Perhaps it was because I was trying to see who’d won that I missed noticing her. One of the girls I’d been dancing with was suddenly next to me, tipping her face up to claim a kiss.

I kissed her back lightly, as a playful impulse rather than a declaration of passion, but the next moment, she’d caught me off-balance and pressed me against the back of the house. She was kissing me so deeply I could scarcely breathe, and groping me through my trousers.

I pushed her away, shocked, and there stood Andrew, smiling meanly. “Go ahead, then. It’s obvious you want to.” The girl smiled, too, in a feral way, and I realized they’d planned this.

I punched Andrew squarely in the stomach, and felt the jolt go up my recently healed arm. It was a stupid thing to do, because he promptly sicked up on my legs. The girl made as if to come at me, but two boys held her back saying, “Enough. That’s enough. We don’t want the police here.”

Kat appeared at my side, asking if I were all right. When I told her yes, she said, “You’d better go. Andrew’s not good to be around when he’s this drunk.” I started to leave, but she caught my arm and said, “I’m sorry. If I’d known about this, I would have warned you, or put a stop to it, or something.”

“It’s all right,” I said, although it wasn’t, and left. I got home safely on the bike, reeking of alcohol and vomit, and was grateful I was no longer staying with Kivrin. So bloody much for being normal, I thought as I peeled off my stinking clothes.

I had liked Andrew. I’d thought him irresponsible but harmless and had never understood why he was so fixated on my sex life or lack thereof. It wasn’t just that he’d set me up with the girl. It was that he’d taken pleasure in mocking my self-imposed celibacy. I’d never given much thought to his drinking habits or his womanizing before, but now I found myself wondering what sort of man he would become. Would he learn how to regulate his behavior with time, as most students did, or would he spend his life taking pleasure wherever he found it and demeaning others at the expense of his career and relationships?

After the party, I’d half-expected to be ostracized by most of my classmates because Andrew was easily the most popular student in our year. To my surprise, I saw that Taki and the others were drawing away from him, as if they also had seen a side of him that made them uneasy. Looking back, I realized they’d been gradually leaving his orbit for months now. I wondered just how often Andrew had been so intoxicated that he hadn’t been “good to be around” and whether the boy who’d said, “We don’t want the police here,” had been speaking from experience.

Andrew seemed surprised by their reaction, too, and often wore a resentful expression that spoiled his good looks. In lecture, his responses to questions became combative for no reason I could discern. The first time I witnessed it, I thought perhaps he was suddenly hostile to Verity because she was my tutor, but Phoebe told me privately after class that he was behaving the same way in all his courses.

“Kat and I think he’s afraid of ploughing in his exams again,” she said.

“And antagonizing his instructors will help him how?” I asked.

Phoebe shrugged. “He’s even being rude to his tutor. We think Andrew’s too used to having things his own way. His family’s rolling in it. Perhaps that’s been enough for him to sidestep consequences, all these years. Apparently, his parents complained to Wilkens when Andrew failed his prelims. They said his failure was an embarrassment to the family, and Wilkens told them to tell their son to play less and work more. Kat says Andrew and Wilkens had a tremendous row at their last tutoring session.” Wilkens was tutoring Kat and Andrew in Ancient History.

Verity seemed unperturbed by Andrew’s attempts to make a scene in her lectures, but was disinclined to suffer fools gladly. She let Andrew’s behavior slide for one lecture, but when he offered a surly reply in the class after that, she said, “Mr. Pearson. If participating in a constructive manner places too great a demand on your personal resources, your tutor can easily acquaint you with the proper procedure for withdrawing from Oxford.”

As Verity turned back to the map we were discussing to point out a detail, Andrew swore angrily and chucked a handheld at her, narrowly missing her head. In the tingling silence that followed, I wondered whether he'd been deliberately trying to frighten her. If so, he'd failed, as Verity had scarcely flinched.

“Mr. Pearson,” she said calmly, turning to face us, “collect your things and go. Consider yourself fortunate that your aim is as unreliable as your scholarship or you would be on your way to the Dean’s office this very moment.”

Andrew looked as if he meant to defy her, but Verity stood stock still, radiating quiet anger and determination from every pore. I heard Taki whisper, “Go. Just go, you idiot,” then Andrew left, slamming the door behind him.

“That was lively,” Verity said dryly, and nervous laughter flitted through the room. “Now, in a village of this size…” she continued, as if nothing had ever happened. I sat there, admiring her. Kivrin and Verity had intentionally taught me countless facts about History, but I found myself wondering if the things they’d unintentionally taught me, about dealing with insurmountable problems and difficult people, would prove more valuable to me in the long run.

July 2062

Andrew was rusticated until the end of 2062 for his behavior towards several dons. Although he was allowed to use the library and sit his exams, he was barred from college. Kat said it was a relief to go to a tutoring session that didn’t end with shouting and slammed doors. She told me that Wilkens had said Andrew’s father was threatening to sue Balliol. Wilkens had reportedly told him to save his money for criminal defense barristers, as his son would be needing them.

I took a First in my final exams and celebrated by starting my scar collection.

That’s not quite how it happened, but it was true that I’d gone to Ferguson to acquire the first of many scars the day after I got my exam results. He’d begun doing the scars on my backside and legs because so many of them would need to be laid down and the only way to get a proper layered effect was to actually create them in layers.

As promised, I’d felt nothing when the wounds were created, and Ferguson had given me medication for the pain, but riding my bicycle was an experience best avoided.

“I don’t see why he has to make so many of them,” I complained to Verity. Kivrin and I had gone round to discuss my practicum and play with James. I was amazed by how much he’d grown and changed since I’d last seen him. The downy baby hair that had been standing straight up two months ago had flattened, and he kept trying to climb me. Cyril had changed, too, although he had yet to gain Penwiper’s approval. My feet were safe now, but he still regarded my shoes with ill-disguised longing.

“You know perfectly well that corporal punishment was once very common,” Verity said, while trying to discourage James from clutching at my trousers.

“No, that’s all right, I don’t mind being Everest,” I said. “Yes, I know beating used to be common, but it’s not as if I’m going to stroll up to a contemp and say, ‘How do you do? Would you like to see my arse?’ ”

Verity smiled and said, “Yes, it’s not likely to arise on a short drop, but you never know. About ten years back, a female historian, Cordelia Rupert, went to the Edwardian era without changing out of some rather erotic undergarments. She was supposed to be there only long enough to mail a few letters, but she was in a traffic accident, and nearly was arrested for lewd behavior when the hospital saw what she was wearing.”

Kivrin added, “And later, if you go to the Middle Ages, there will be almost no privacy. A lack of scars might lead some ruffian to think you’re worth a ransom.”

“So we’ve discussed some options for your practicum,” Verity said, changing the subject. “Have you decided whether you want to go before or after World War II?”

“If I went to the late thirties, I could go to London and Backbury and Dover and familiarize myself with the drop locations for the missing historians,” I said.

“We could probably find an umbrella theme that would permit that,” Verity agreed.

“But if I go somewhere between 1960 and 1995, I could visit archives and newspaper morgues, looking for information I can’t access from here,” I said. “I could still visit the drop sites, but I expect they would have changed noticeably, so many years after the war. I’m not sure, though. It doesn’t sound enough, somehow, for a practicum.”

Kivrin said, “It’s a common misconception that a practicum has to be dramatic.”

“Can’t imagine where anyone would have got that idea,” I said, giving Kivrin a teasing look. She chucked a cushion at me.

“If I’d gone to 1320, as I should have done, very little would have happened,” she said. “I would have had a chance to observe their holiday traditions, but that wasn’t why we chose that date. We opted for Christmas-time because all the feast days would make it easier to determine my temporal location.”

Verity and Kivrin exchanged a look I couldn’t interpret, then Verity nodded to herself, as if reaching some sort of decision. “This information is not to be discussed with your fellow students.”

“All right,” I agreed, without truly understanding her.

“The nature of a practicum is very much at the discretion of the tutor,” Verity said. “The length and even the purpose may vary from student to student.”

"If the student's an undergraduate, there may be no practicum at all," Kivrin added. "I didn't have one until I was in graduate school, because the Middle Ages were a ten until Gilchrist took advantage of the Head's absence to re-classify them. I likely wouldn't have gone as an undergraduate in any case, because of all the things Dunworthy insisted I learn first, and he wouldn't let me use implants for most of it. In general, the further back you go, the more prep it takes."

Verity nodded. "Dunworthy usually reserved more complicated or hazardous assignments for graduate students."

“So, if I go to the post-World War II era, my practicum would be what? Observing methods of information retrieval?” I asked.

“Actually, that could tie into the Disciplines of History theme. Gathering, evaluating, prioritizing, and sometimes discarding information from disparate sources. How would you feel about spending your practicum going through historical records?”

“How hard are the chairs?” I asked, as James clung to my trousers with one pudgy fist and waved the other one around while babbling triumphantly.

“We’d stop the scar treatments a week or more before each drop, so you won’t be in any pain when you go,” Verity said.

“Each drop?” I echoed. “I’m going out multiple times?” Kivrin and Verity looked at each other and smirked, as if they’d known how excited that would make me.

“You’re well ahead in the coursework you need for your degree,” Verity said. “Provided your work doesn’t suffer, we thought you might do several short multi-day drops in addition to your official practicum, which would last about two weeks. As a matter of convention, the practicum will have to happen first, but that could be as soon as October.”

“October?” I said. Many historians didn’t go on assignment until March or April of their third year. I could scarcely believe it.

“You’ll need to learn or review some practical skills, of course,” Verity said. “Contemp currency, how to use a contemp bus, how to use the Underground, how to drive a car.”

“Dunworthy’s taught him the first three,” Kivrin said. “I don’t think you know how to drive, though.”

“No,” I said. “We were going to do that the summer before I started Oxford.”

“How to row and pole contemp boats,” Verity said.

“I’ll be looking through archives in London, not Venice,” I said.

“You have Oxford written all over you,” Verity said. “Ned made an idiot of himself in 1888 by not knowing how to handle contemp boats. Also, how to use a contemp telephone, microfilm reader, and possibly a typewriter.”

I agreed with her. I would have agreed to anything. I was finally going on assignment.

October 2062

By October, Ferguson had done all of my scars except for the ones on my arm, leg, and abdomen. He’d wanted to make those “especially memorable” and had recommended hospitalization and at least a week of low-activity recovery time. I’d decided to put it off until the following summer, as I didn’t need combat scars at the moment. It was a relief to be able to sit comfortably again, and I’d already become used to the small scars he’d added to my hands.

I went up to London to see my mother, who was thinking of actually marrying her latest livein. He was ten years her junior and reminded me strongly of Andrew, so I suggested she wait until the following summer when the weather would be more pleasant. I privately wondered if he’d last that long.

I’d moved back into Balliol, as had most of my year. Taki and Kat had rooms on my staircase. Phoebe’s room was on a different staircase, but she spent so much time with Taki that it was hard to tell. I found myself enjoying their company every bit as much as I had during my first year. I’d been afraid the specter of Andrew would overshadow our friendship, but they seemed as relieved as I was that he wasn’t there. None of us knew if Andrew would be returning in January, or how he’d done on his finals. Kat had tried to winkle information out of Wilkens with no success.

I’d been afraid they’d be jealous that I was going on my practicum so soon, but none of them seemed to mind at all. None of them felt ready yet, although they’d been discussing possibilities with their tutors.

Four weeks before the drop, Verity and I had finalized a list of places to visit and and had prioritized them. Historians were still doing their drops in chronological order, so I was being sent to 1960.

Three weeks before the drop, we’d selected a specific target date in 1960, and I’d acquired the clothing and identity documents I’d need.

Two weeks before the drop, I’d finished learning all the skills I’d need for my assignment and had acquired notepads and pens that were replicas of contemp items. We’d discussed using a miniature camera concealed in a pair of spectacles, but hadn’t thought of it until the last minute, and couldn’t get one until December.

One week before the drop, Trubshaw said I couldn’t go.

“What?!” I said, when Verity told me. The retrieval team had taken over the back room of our favorite restaurant once again. James had rocketed around the room during the appetizers, and by the time pudding arrived, he’d had a brief meltdown and a fresh nappy and was now drowsing in Ned’s arms. He turned his head to look at me curiously, then closed his eyes again.

“Trubshaw has decided that third-year students can’t possibly be ready for their practica in the fall of their third year,” she said. “Any practicum undertaken before January of the third year can only take place with the written approval of the Head of History.”

“Which will not be forthcoming,” I guessed.

“Unlikely,” Verity acknowledged.

“You have an option,” Finch said. “You can’t use time travel for your practicum for another three months. You could, however, go as a temporary research employee of Time Travel or Retrievals.”

“I thought I had to do my practicum first,” I said, looking to Verity and Kivrin.

“It’s customary, but not a hard-and-fast rule,” Kivrin said.

“How badly do you want to go now?” Verity asked.

“Rather badly,” I said. “But if I do as Finch suggests, Trubshaw will hear of it, and think of some other roadblock. And if I wait, I could take the camera specs.”

“True,” Verity said, “although you’d still need to take some notes, for appearance’s sake.”

“Which you’d want to do anyway, for important articles, in case the camera malfunctions,” Ned added. “Why don’t you wait until January, and if Trubshaw tries to delay you again, I’ll send you as a research assistant. Speaking of which, have you given any more thought to graduate school?”

He was married to my tutor. Didn’t they talk to each other? Perhaps not, with James and Lady Schrapnell constantly interrupting them.

“I haven’t decided,” I said. “Given how much of a nuisance Trubshaw has been, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. He has to retire sometime.”

“Or be deposed,” Finch said darkly.

December 2062

The camera spectacles arrived in early December. It was a good thing I had some time to practice with them, as they were harder to manage than I’d expected.

“Right, then, look directly at the image you want to capture and blink slowly,” the technician in Props said, and I did my best, but it took several tries to take a photograph at all, and that had been off-center.

The technician didn't seem the least bit discouraged. “Happens all the time,” he said. “Some people move their heads slightly when they blink consciously, and it takes a while to get the hang of blinking at the right speed. Too fast, and the camera interprets it as a natural blink. Too slow, and the camera thinks you’ve dozed off.” He then showed me how to use a handheld to read the pictures off the spectacles.

“But I won’t be able to take a handheld with me,” I complained.

That’s why it’s so important to learn the proper technique now,” he said. “Take them away and practice for a week.”

I'd done as he said. The first day, I found myself stopping and staring at things I wanted to photograph, which no doubt looked strange to passersby. By the end of the week, though, I could easily take a photograph while walking. More importantly, I could sit at a desk and take decent photographs of newspapers, books, and handwritten letters.

It was only after I’d gone back to see the technician again that he showed me an easier way to capture an image.

“Now, if you definitely need a good photograph, you can look straight at the subject and rub the right earpiece just here,” he said, showing me a spot about a half-inch behind the hinge. Rub it forwards, backwards, then forwards again. Just so. As with the blinking, the timing is important.”

“Why didn’t you show me this before?” I said.

“Because historians make the mistake of thinking they can rely on rubbing the frames and then they don’t practice their blinking,” he said. “Constantly handling the frames can look odd, especially when one isn’t sitting still. It’s true that people also look odd in the beginning when they’re using the blink method, but once they’ve learned the technique, the blinking becomes second nature and is scarcely noticeable.”

He sent me away for another week, to practice rubbing the frames in addition to blinking. When I returned, he tested me and pronounced himself satisfied with my skill level: I would be allowed to take the spectacles on assignment.

“I hadn’t realized there was even a question of that,” I said in some surprise.

“Oh, yes, I have to send a clearance form to your tutor. It’s rare for historians to be allowed to take anachronistic technology at all, and we don’t permit it unless they can use the technology inconspicuously. It’s too hazardous. These, for example,” he said, gesturing at my spectacles, “could be mistaken for espionage equipment if the wrong person noticed them. Now, let me show you how to change out the memory and power source.”

“I’ll need to do that?” I asked.

“Yes, if your tutor accurately estimated the number of documents you plan to record,” he said, and then challenged me to find the mem and battery. I looked over the frames, trying to see where something could be concealed, but there didn’t appear to be any cavities hidden in the frames.

“I don’t see anything,” I said. “Are you certain these aren’t single-use?”

He smiled tolerantly at me, then handed me a small transparent case that had been lying on the lab bench. “These are your mems and batteries.”

“But they’re screws,” I objected.

“Not just screws,” he told me. “The blank ones have mems embedded in them. Look here,” he said, picking a screw up off the lab bench and pointing to its bottom. I saw a tiny black dot. “This screw goes in the hinge of the frames at the right temple. The black dot means the mem is at least 90% full. You should be able to take about a thousand pictures for each screw. When the dot appears, change it out for a blank screw.”

“What about the batteries?” I asked.

“The screws with a white dot on the bottom are batteries. When the battery runs low, the dot will turn red. They go in the left hinge, and last a good deal longer than the mem screws.” He handed me a small kit for repairing and polishing spectacles. “Keep the lenses clean, so you’ll get better photographs. The lenses may look like ordinary thin-glass, but your camera lens is embedded in them. Take this with you, and wear your spectacles at all times while awake, even in your lodgings or at other times when you expect to be alone. Every time you put them down is an opportunity for someone else to pick them up and discover you don’t need them, and then the awkward questions begin. In fact, it's best to make a habit of wearing them while you're still here in Oxford.”

I thanked him, and took the repair kit away with me, privately thinking he was rather paranoid. I’d teased Kivrin about becoming Colin the Viking. I hadn’t realized I’d need to become Colin the Spy.

Verity supported the technician’s advice about wearing the camera spectacles constantly, so I did. By Christmas Eve, it felt odd going about without them, so I wore them to the Henrys' party and used them to take casual snaps of the retrieval team.

As the evening wound down, the conversation inevitably turned to the subject of time travel and the closures. We were still trying to puzzle out the significance of the post-1995 closure.

“I know why we can’t get to anything after 1995,” Kivrin said suddenly. We all turned to look at her. “To keep us from preventing Trubshaw’s conception.”

Several of us groaned as if she’d made a bad pun, but then Badri said, “Do you think that’s it? Do you think we can’t reach anything after 1995 to keep us out of Dunworthy’s timeline?”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Ned said. “We could travel to most of the post-1995 era before Dunworthy left to retrieve Polly. And if we could go there now—”

“We’d try to warn him not to send Polly and Merope and Michael to 1940,” I finished.

Finch said, “No. I could believe that if the blockage began a bit later, say around the time of the Pandemic. But before that? It’s not as if an historian is going to walk up to Dunworthy as he leaves primary school one day and give him a message. Even if we did, he’d likely lose it.”

“Perhaps we can’t go because we’d prevent his parents from meeting,” Verity said.

I smiled, but wondered if it were true. Surely we were being prevented from interfering in something. What had happened around 1995?

Dunworthy wasn't the only historian who'd been active in the early days of time travel. What about the people who'd invented it? What if we were being kept from inadvertently destroying time travel itself? Or what if the continuum, in an effort to mend itself, was in the process of keeping time travel from being invented in the first place?

Chapter Text

January 2063

As the day of the drop approached, I kept running down a checklist of the things I’d need. I’d got an implant containing background information, including the addresses of places I intended to visit and a contemp map of the Underground. My clothing and luggage were ready. I’d acquired enough contemp cash to easily last the two weeks, assuming I lived cheaply, and a money belt to carry it unobtrusively.

I'd half-expected Trubshaw to cause another delay, but he was still away on Christmas holiday when the drop date arrived. As I stood in the lab, waiting for Badri to send me through, Verity said, “Don’t overdo it. No matter how hard you work on this assignment, you won’t be able to cover everything in all the archives. And don’t go dashing off anywhere unprepared. We can schedule other drops to follow up on any information you find.”

“I know,” I said.

“Don’t lose your head. Many historians do on their first drop.”

“It’s not my first drop,” I said, smiling, as the veils lowered.

She raised an eyebrow. “Stick to the plan. I’ll see you in a fortnight, at the start of term.”

I nodded to her and to Badri, and the net opened.

April 1960

Badri had warned me the drop was on an emergency staircase in St. Paul’s Station, so I tried not to move at all until my eyes adjusted to the dimness. I was indeed standing on a metal staircase, spiraling up and down into the darkness, so I seemed to have come through in the right place. I walked down and down, counting steps, until I came to a metal door. I put my ear to the door to listen and could hear muffled noise outside. I opened the door a tiny crack and saw many people passing back and forth. It was definitely an Underground station.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and slipped out as quickly as possible without looking rushed. Act as if you belong there and no one will notice you, Verity had told me. Nervousness will draw someone’s attention. There’s no need to be nervous. You’re just a student, doing research for an essay. London’s full of students. Be one of them. Be invisible.

We’d planned the drop for half-past eight in the morning, on the theory that my exit from the staircase would be less likely to be observed in the bustle of a large crowd intent on getting to work. I followed the crowd and the signs, and soon found myself on the platform for westbound trains. Sure enough, there was a sign saying this was St. Paul’s Station. I boarded the next train and was halfway to Holborn before I realized I’d failed to ascertain the “time” part of my space-time location. Verity had reminded me repeatedly to take care of that task, first thing. So much for sticking to the plan.

I decided to continue west to Holland Park Station, my destination, and try to determine my space-time location there. I was hoping to find a bed in a hostel at Holland Park. I’d chosen it because it was fairly inexpensive and close to the places I wanted to go in London, and also because it was one stop west of Notting Hill Gate. I planned to spend time familiarizing myself with the area.

I bought a copy of the Times just outside Holland Park Station, glad that Mr. Dunworthy had made me practice handling 20^th century currency until it was second nature. A quick glance told me I’d got the date bang on target. I continued to the hostel, located in an old Jacobean mansion. Most of the mansion had been destroyed during the Blitz, but the grounds and the remaining wing were beautiful.

“Welcome to Holland House,” a woman said as I stepped into the reception area. Her tone conveyed the opposite of welcome and she eyed me suspiciously. “Looking for a bed?”

She made it sound a crime to be seeking a bed in a youth hostel. I wondered if there was something wrong about my clothing or whether she greeted all of the guests as if they’d come for the sole purpose of liberating the towels. “Yes,” I said. “I’d like a bed, please, for the next two weeks.”

“The maximum stay is five nights,” she said, in an affronted tone.

“Very well, then,” I replied, while struggling to hold on to my patience, “I’d like a bed for five nights, please.”

She quoted me a price, including breakfast and towel rental, demanded a deposit, and then informed me I wouldn’t be able to check in until five.

“Can I leave my bag with you until then?” I asked, indicating my duffel.

“No,” she said, as if I’d wanted to deposit a rotting corpse on her doorstep. I wondered if her surname were Eddritch.

“Then can I pay for last night as well, so I can check in now?” I didn’t want to walk about London all day, lugging a duffel. I’d argued with Verity about coming through at six in the evening for that very reason, but she hadn’t wanted me wandering around after sunset, looking for a room.

After sourly considering my proposition as if looking for a trap, she consented, provided I only stayed four nights, and gave me a key, a bed number, and a towel. I’d originally thought of coming through in March, when most students would still be at university, but Verity had overruled me.

“It’s true you’ll have a better chance of finding a bed during term-time,” she’d said, “but fewer people in the dormitory means you’re more likely to be drawn into lengthy one-on-one conversations. There will be more bustle and distractions if the room is full. Now, if you’d prefer private accommodation…”

“No,” I'd said. “A student would look for the cheapest accommodations possible. I’m just nervous about running into Oxford students.”

“If you do, don’t discuss Oxford. At all. Pretending you know nothing about it is dangerous because you might slip, and revealing what you do know is equally perilous, as it could lead to questions.”

The twelve-bed dormitory was far more cheerful than the receptionist had been, and from appearances, it was nearly full. I exchanged greetings with a few other students who didn’t seem especially curious about me.

“Hullo,” a short dark-haired man said to me. “Robert Eccles. Here for the theater or the museums?”

“Neither, I’m afraid,” I said. “Colin Knight. Visiting archives for an essay that’s only slightly overdue.”

Robert chuckled. “As in, ‘Don’t come back for term without the essay’? My sincere condolences. Tutors can be complete beasts.” He went back to arguing with his friends over which play to see that night. Apparently, they’d come down from Cambridge together.

I took a notepad out of my duffel, put the duffel in a locker next to my bed, pocketed the key, and went out.

My first inclination was to go to Notting Hill Gate, but I reminded myself I’d have all of Sunday for that. Instead, I went to the Times to make a start on the newspaper morgues. One of the articles I’d read for my Disciplines of History course had gushed enthusiastically about the romance of searching through archives. Having already gone through a good many newspapers, letters, and diaries in Oxford, I was skeptical. In vids, the researcher often finds the critical piece of information in a single evening’s worth of work and his task is accomplished. Sometimes, the relevant newspaper article turns up before he’s even had a chance to warm the chair.

In real life, searching for a single piece of information can take months, and the quest rarely ends with that one fact. All too often, the discovery of one piece of information leads to the realization that three or four additional things must be sought, or that the puzzle pieces already in one’s possession have been assembled the wrong way.

I’d gone to the morgue with my cover story well prepared. Know more about your persona than you think you’ll need, Verity had counseled, but don’t volunteer information. The less you tell, the less you’re committed to, and you may have to change your biography mid-stream. I’d been ready to explain that I was a student researching an essay, but the receptionist didn’t even ask for my name.

Before leaving Oxford, I’d made a list of every newspaper issue I’d already seen and which ones I wanted to read, and included that information in my implant. I sat down with my notepad and began working my way through the “missing” list. By the time the morgue closed, I’d gone through several newspapers without finding anything significant. Having had many similarly unproductive days in Oxford, I thought nothing of it. I stretched the ache out of my back as I rose to leave, and was grateful I’d fully healed from Ferguson’s work.

I had dinner in a pub near Oxford Circus, then walked up and down Oxford Street. Much of it had changed since the war, but I found myself wondering if Polly had found work in any of the department stores, and what had become of her.

The hostile receptionist had gone off-duty by the time I returned to Holland House. In her place was a chatty young man who looked to be no older than myself.

“Would you like a room, sir?” he asked me in a pleasant voice.

“No,” I said, “I checked in earlier today.”

“Oh. Then you must have met Sylvia. Don’t let her put you off. Hates everyone,” he said. “And don’t forget that breakfast is included. She often neglects to mention it.”

“She charged me for breakfast,” I said. “And a towel.”

“That cow,” he said. “She was right to charge you for the towel, but not for breakfast. Bring your receipt down and I’ll set you right.”

I did, and the clerk, who introduced himself as Ian, recommended a hostel in Earl’s Court where I could stay after my five nights, one of which I’d missed entirely, were up.

“Go over there tomorrow and book yourself a room for one night five days from now, and I’ll make another five-night reservation here for you, if you like,” he offered, and then proceeded to quiz me about every aspect of my visit to London. Unlike Sylvia, he was bored rather than distrustful, but I was glad I’d invented a thorough history for myself, and even more relieved when a pair of giggling girls turned up, asking for a room.

In my dormitory, I was careful to store my spectacles in a case and put them in my locker before heading to the bath. I’d left Oxford shortly after lunchtime and had walked about for hours in 1960. I was tired, and my feet and bad leg ached. After a long shower, I climbed into my bunk, exhausted but satisfied with myself. I’d survived the first day of my practicum. I’d had no success with the newspapers, but nothing had gone wrong.

The fire alarm went off two hours later.

I scrambled down from my bunk, determined to take the spectacles with me. I was wearing the money belt, but replacing all my things would eat into my funds and I might need a part-time job to make it to my rendezvous, which would cut into my research time. If I grabbed my duffel and shoes without taking time to dress or snatch up my dirty clothing, I could…

“Oh, not again,” a sleepy voice said.

“It’s all right,” someone else said. “The bloody alarm goes off nearly every night, sometimes two or three times.”

He’d no sooner said it than the alarm shut off and I could hear Ian in the hallway, calling out, “Sorry, everyone. False alarm.”

I climbed back into my bunk and tried to slow my pulse, thinking of how easily my practicum could have been derailed by something as simple as a fire. At a minimum, I would have needed to find somewhere else to stay. Would a hostel fire have been mentioned in the London newspapers if no one had been hurt? What if I couldn’t find evidence of what had become of the missing historians because something had happened to them, something not newsworthy, and I was now looking in the wrong place?

I soon established a routine: breakfast in the morning with the other hostel guests, long days in newspaper morgues, evenings at the hostel. It seemed that most of the guests only stayed for a few nights. The turnover made me feel more anonymous, and also gave me a broader view of the sort of people who came to stay in hostels. I began to think of writing an article about it.

Many of them had come to London for the theater or the museums, or to visit the Tower and Buckingham Palace and St. Paul’s, but there was a group of girls who’d come for the shopping. Almost all of them were young and many were traveling with friends. From conversations I’d overheard, a handful of them were still at public school and rather excited to be vacationing on their own for the first time. Most of the rest were university students, escaping their schools and their parents’ social plans to pursue social plans of their own. There were a few guests who’d left school, mostly teachers traveling cheaply to take in the sights.

On Sunday, I went out sightseeing. I’d considered taking the train to Backbury for the day, but decided to wait until I had a specific purpose for visiting. Instead, I wandered through the area around Notting Hill Gate, wishing I'd got there twenty years earlier. It was obvious many of the buildings were relatively new, but there were enough pre-World War II buildings left to make me feel closer to Polly, simply because she’d once looked at them.

I went to St. Paul’s Cathedral and saw treasures that had been vaporized years before my birth: the Wren staircase, the statue of Faulknor, and The Light of The World. I took the tour, but the voice I heard describing them was Dunworthy’s. He’d told me about St. Paul’s so many times that I felt I’d already been there. I’d had dreams about bumping into an elderly Dunworthy in St. Paul’s, just as I’d dreamt of finding a middle-aged Polly in Kensington, but to my relief, I’d seen no one to remind me of either of them.

That evening, I went out with a group of students from the hostel. We’d gone to see a new musical called Follow That Girl, and then to a pub afterwards. Having spent most of the week hunched over newspapers and primitive microfilm readers, I wasn’t surprised to find myself looking at the other students as historical subjects as well as companions. These were the children of World War II and the years immediately preceding it. At first glance, I couldn’t tell they’d been born into a time of scarcity and fear, but the war was ever-present on the edges of the conversation, even fifteen years after its end: there were many passing references to the Blitz or rationing or fathers who’d come home changed or not at all. I kept hoping one of them would turn out to be a former evacuee, but I had no such luck.

“And what about your dad, then?” one of them asked me. They’d been discussing what their parents had done in the war.

“Pilot,” I said. “Killed during the Battle of Britain.”

“Oh, I say, hard luck,” he replied with genuine sympathy.

“It’s all right. I hadn’t even been born yet,” I said. “Mum’s got an uncle who’s been a sort of dad to me, and he’s been brilliant.”

“I wish I’d got an uncle,” another boy said. “My dad does nothing but complain about my marks.” The others laughed, and the focus of attention shifted away from me.

Since most of the hostel guests were students, sooner or later the subject of university always came up. Three times in ten days, I’d been told I seemed like an Oxford man. Verity and I had discussed the possibility of going as an Oxford student, but given its relative proximity to London, that had seemed too hazardous. We’d chosen Leeds instead, as the city itself was much farther from London and seemed an unlikely tourist destination for another hostel guest to quiz me about. I’d put information about Leeds in my implant, hoping not to need it.

Ten days into my practicum, my luck ran out.

“Leeds?” a boy said enthusiastically at breakfast. He’d arrived late the previous evening. “That’s my university. What’s your subject?”

Summoning up an image of Andrew, I said, “Chatting up girls. What’s yours?”

“I'm reading History,” he said.

Bloody buggering hell. “Are you?” I said, trying to sound pleased rather than terrified. Two of the other boys at the table already knew I was History, so I couldn’t claim to be reading a different subject. “That’s me as well. Who’s your tutor? What year are you?”

“Jenkins,” he said. “Renaissance. It’s my first year. How about you?”

“Pemberton,” I answered, grateful for the time I’d spent researching Leeds. “Modern. I only have one term left, assuming I ever finish this wretched essay.”

“He’s making you work during the vac? That sounds like something my tutor would do,” another boy said.

He launched into a lengthy complaint about the heinous behavior of his tutor, and I finished my breakfast and hastily withdrew. Luckily, I’d been planning on moving to Earl’s Court that day. I decided I’d do well to leave at once and remain at Earl’s Court instead of returning to Holland House for the last few days of my practicum. Sylvia tried to charge me a cancellation fee, but I’d been well schooled on her wicked ways by Ian.

The receptionist in the hostel at Earl’s Court was neither as unhelpful as Sylvia, nor as inquisitive as Ian, but he remembered me. “Back again?” he said, putting aside a textbook.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve a reservation, but I’d like a bed for four nights instead of the one.”

“Going back to Oxford soon?” he asked, as I signed the register. I looked up in surprise. “Sorry. You seem like an Oxford man. I was there as an undergraduate.”

“Oh?” I said. “I’m at Leeds. How did you come to be working here? Are you on holiday?” Ian had confided to me that he was a guest of the hostel, working occasional shifts to pay his way.

“On vac, yes, but not vacation. I’m reading law,” he said, gesturing to the book beside him. “My dad’s a vicar and the expenses are monstrous, even with a scholarship, so I work here part-time during term and full-time during breaks. Almost done, though. Would be done, if I hadn’t missed so much school in primary. Didn’t get to Oxford until I was twenty. Would you like to leave your bag here until check-in time?”

I was about to say yes, when I heard a horn and brakes screeching just outside the hostel. I turned around and saw a crowd beginning to gather, just as a young woman dashed into the hostel.

“Please, you need to call an ambulance,” she said. “A young man’s been struck by an automobile.”

The receptionist immediately picked up the telephone and did as she asked, then offered her a glass of water and a chair. After he had her settled, he turned back to me and said, “Sorry, mate. Did you want to leave your bag?”

“Yes, please” I replied and paid him for my bed.

I was turning to go when he said, “Lucky that wasn’t you, eh? Do be careful.”

I’d made my way through the fall of 1940 and all of 1941 at the Times, the Herald, and the Standard, looking for personal ads, obituaries, and any news stories that might provide some clue as to the whereabouts of the missing historians. I saw others using the morgues, intent on their own errands, but as at the hostel, I saw few faces for more than a day or two. I was beginning to feel quite lonely.

Today, I’d gone to the British Museum's newspaper library to look through regional newspapers near Backbury and Dover. I’d decided to switch tactics and review articles written in 1950, because so many details had been withheld during the war. I spent the day reading through articles about Dunkirk, hoping for some mention of an American reporter, but had no success.

The next day, I began going through Warwickshire newspapers and almost immediately found an article titled, “Historic Manor Helped War Effort in Many Ways.”

It was Denewell Manor, the place where Merope had gone for her assignment, observing evacuees. Reading eagerly, I learned there had been a measles epidemic during Merope’s stay and that the manor had been taken over for use as a riflery school soon afterwards. Perhaps Merope had come to London looking for Polly when she couldn’t get to her drop.

The article was full of praise for Lady Denewell’s war efforts, from hosting the evacuees and chairing several committees in the early days of the war, to becoming a force to be reckoned with as the head of an ambulance post later on. One of the quotes praising her was from Mrs. Reginald Bartley, head of the local Evacuation Committee. I was tempted to catch the next train to Warwickshire, but sternly reminded myself that the article was ten years old and Mrs. Bartley could be dead or living somewhere else. I took several careful photographs of the article and wrote down the information. I’d have to follow up this lead from Oxford and attempt to contact Mrs. Bartley on a return trip. While I was doing that, I’d see if I could dig up any Army records about the riflery school. Its existence had come as a complete surprise to me.

I spent the last two days of my practicum reading through the local newspapers from 1940. The Warwickshire papers mentioned the measles epidemic, giving me a time frame for the quarantine that had been absent from the 1950 articles. Merope had clearly been unable to reach the drop for her rendezvous. There was no mention of a riflery school, as I’d suspected. When had Merope left Backbury? Would she have remained in Lady Denewell’s service after the children had gone?

Accounts of the Dunkirk evacuation filled the local papers for weeks. Skimming through them, I saw no references to American reporters. Time was running out for me, so I took endless photographs and made notes about a few articles that looked promising. Although I was primarily focused on specific mentions of Mike Davis or American reporters just now, I was also looking for the names of any boats, boat captains, or survivors named in the papers, for further study in Oxford. I might want to interview some of them on a later trip.

On my last morning, I rose earlier than usual and made my way back to St. Paul’s. I had a bad moment when I realized I hadn’t taken careful note of the location of the emergency staircase, but I found it after some searching. I glanced at my watch, and then hurried up the staircase. I saw the shimmer begin above me and ran up the last dozen steps and into the net.

January 2063

I was panting from exertion when I came through. I’d expected to see Verity and possibly Kivrin. Instead, two men I didn’t know were there to escort me to the Examination Schools. I had the impression they would have taken me there by force, if necessary.

Kivrin and Verity were waiting for me, wearing their gowns and looking very serious.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“It’s the final exam for your practicum,” Verity said, gesturing at a form lying on a desk. “You may begin now.”

I took a seat, thinking this must one of those things older students weren’t supposed to tell the younger ones about. Dunworthy had certainly never mentioned it. I took out a pen, but put it down within a few minutes.

“This makes no sense,” I said, holding up the form.

“It’s the exam,” Verity said.

“But it’s not what’s important,” I protested. “Average number of people in the newspaper morgue? Number of articles requested per day? That’s not what this trip was about.”

“Suppose you tell us what it was about it, then,” Verity said, glancing briefly at Kivrin.

So I did. I told them about the research conditions in 1960, which were abysmal. Some of the issues I’d requested had been old newspapers and some had been on microfilm. The newspapers had been fragile and must have had dust or mold on them, because they’d made my nose run and eyes itch. The microfilm machines had been hideous contraptions that gave me headaches after using them for hours and had frequently broken down. Instead of being able to search for digital images on a handheld on my own, I’d had to ask for everything and wait for someone to bring it to me.

I told them about the discoveries I’d made about the measles epidemic and the riflery range. “We’d wondered if Merope had gone to London when I found that personal ad about a lost ring,” I said. “Now we know that she couldn’t get to her drop. It’s reasonable to assume she went to London, hoping to find Polly and use her drop.”

“Reasonable, but not conclusively proven,” Kivrin said.

“Agreed,” I replied. “I have the name of the head of the local Evacuation Committee. I thought I’d look her up here, find out where she is in 1960, and go back for an interview. I also have some names from the Dunkirk articles I should follow up.”

“Very well,” Verity said. “Anything else?”

And of course there had been more, so I told them how exhausting and lonely it was to sit in a morgue day after day with strangers and that I’d started making up stories about what the other people were searching for to alleviate the tedium. I told them about Sylvia and Ian and the law student who’d called the ambulance. Most of all, I told them about the students I’d met in hostels, why they’d come there and what they enjoyed doing and how surprisingly happy and normal they were, despite the conditions they’d grown up in.

“I wrote some of their names down,” I confessed. “I’d like to see what became of them. And Ferguson was right about the scars. There’s no privacy in a dormitory. Some of the students I saw were more marked than I am. And you were right, half a dozen different people thought I was from Oxford.”

“Anything else?” Verity said.

“No. Yes. This,” I said, holding out the form, “is rubbish. Nothing of importance fits in these blanks.”

“We know,” Verity said, looking satisfied. “You’re not allowed to discuss this with anyone. Congratulations on passing your practicum.”

The two of them took me out for a celebratory luncheon. I’d been rushed over to the Schools in such a hurry, I hadn’t even realized what time it was in Oxford.

“So what was that all about today?” I asked, once we’d ordered.

Verity took a careful look around the room for potential eavesdroppers. I’m not sure why she bothered, as the restaurant was only half-full and was in any case far too expensive for most students to patronize. I’d only been there once before, with Dunworthy, to celebrate my seventeenth birthday.

“That,” Verity said, “was the final examination that traditionally follows a practicum.”

“Rather a tame one, if you ask me,” Kivrin said. She looked to Verity as if seeking permission, and then said, “I used to have a roommate named John Bartholomew. When Dunworthy handed him a form of useless questions, John became rather upset and punched him.”

“Punched Dunworthy?” I said incredulously. “That’s what those men were there for?”

“Yes,” Kivrin said. “Broke his spectacles. Some students become quite angry.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s because you had a short practicum,” Verity said. “Remember I told you they can have different lengths and different purposes?”

“I remember,” I said, “but I didn’t understand it.”

“John was excellent at analysis, but had a tendency to get wrapped up in the facts and forget the people,” Kivrin said. “It’s a common failing among inexperienced historians, given all the time we spend with reference texts and archives and such.”

“And?” I said.

“So, John’s tutor mentioned his concern to Dunworthy,” Kivrin said, “and by the way, this is something you shouldn’t share with the other students, ever. The two of them decided to do something about it. John had spent years preparing to go on assignment following St. Paul. With his tutor’s consent, Dunworthy sent him to St. Paul’s instead. To the fire watch in the fall of 1940.”

“Hang on. Wilkens agreed to that? But why?” I asked.

“To learn that history is about people and not facts,” Kivrin said. “He was on assignment for months, and grew attached to the people around him, hence his anger at the inappropriate questions.”

“Does that happen often?” I said, simultaneously enthralled and horrified. “Why wasn’t I sent on a drop like that?”

“Because you didn’t need that lesson,” Verity said. “It was obvious from your essays that you’d already learned that, just as it was obvious that Bartholomew hadn’t. All you actually needed to do was prove you could survive in a different era without making a complete fool of yourself. Hence the short drop. Hence the oral exam as soon as you’d rejected the test questions.”

Anything else, she had asked, and I’d told her about the students and how I’d admired them. “So now what?” I said. “Was that truly the end of my practicum?”

“Yes,” Verity said. “You’ll need to write up your experiences, of course. And you’ll likely go on other, shorter drops to interview people you’ve identified from your research. But there’s no need to start on that today. Term begins the day after tomorrow. Take a day off and get some rest.”

May 2063

By April, I’d finished writing the essay on my practicum, including my observations about hostel life. Verity was pleased with my progress and began nudging me more insistently about graduate school. I’d applied, but was still unsure when or how I would attend.

Being a student would cut into the time I could spend looking for the missing historians. On the other hand, I believed the work I’d need to do for the retrieval team could easily be molded into research for an advanced degree.

I wasn’t the only one whose career decisions had been affected by the World War II closure. Several of the historians who’d been hoping to become practical historians in that era had been forced to do more conventional research to finish their degrees. Some had graduated the previous year, but many would be finishing this summer. A few of them were leaving time travel for good, while others were shifting to different eras.

Andrew had returned to Balliol in January, although I rarely saw him, as he was living out. Kat told me that Andrew had failed most of his finals the previous spring, meaning that he’d need to pass nearly all of them this year. She said that he was less openly angry, but still seemed to be seething under the surface.

One by one, the other historians in my year went on their practica. Because they were going during term, they were sent flash-time instead of real-time, but I could take a shrewd guess as to how long they’d been away, based on their demeanor after returning. Kat told me that Andrew had been pressing Wilkens to go on assignment, but Wilkens had refused on the grounds that Andrew wasn’t ready.

I continued to go on drops of my own, although most of the other students didn’t know it. I’d found Mrs. Bartley, the local Evacuation Committee head, and went on a brief drop to 1960 to interview her. I’d hoped she’d kept records of which children had been at Denewell Manor with Merope, but the only lists she’d used had been discarded as soon as they were no longer needed. The national Committee doubtless had kept files, but I’d been unable to locate them in 1960. One of the ongoing challenges of finding information in the past was how poorly indexed it was. If one were lucky enough to encounter an archivist or reference librarian who’d personally seen the material, all manner of things could be found. Otherwise, it was often as if such records had never existed.

Mrs. Bartley didn’t recall Merope at all, but she did remember the names of three of the children, two of them because they’d been such terrors. She’d no idea what had become of Alf and Binnie Hodbin, but she was able to tell me where to find the third evacuee, Edwina Driscoll.

I interviewed Edwina on a subsequent drop, only to learn that she’d left the manor before Merope and the Hodbins and didn’t know where they’d gone. She did remember the Hodbins had come to Backbury from Whitechapel. I’d begun a preliminary search of housing records for Whitechapel, but the records were so voluminous and haphazardly kept that it would likely take months to go through them all.

When I came back from interviewing Edwina, Finch was there, as were Wilkens and two historians I didn’t know. The atmosphere in the lab was tense.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Retrieval mission,” Badri said tightly, looking angrier than I'd ever seen him.

I wanted to ask him about it, but Finch said, “Colin, we need to send these people through.”

I immediately went to look for Kivrin, to find out what was wrong. She, too, looked tense and distracted, but all she would tell me was that the retrieval team would be meeting for dinner that evening.

I got to the restaurant early, which was a waste, as Verity and Kiv were waiting for Badri and Finch to arrive and wouldn’t tell me anything. I was on my second pint when Badri turned up.

“Finch isn’t coming,” Badri said, as he took a seat. “He and Wilkens are contacting the family.”

“Then…?” Kivrin said.

“Dead,” Badri replied.

“Who’s dead?” I asked. Had World War II reopened in my absence? Surely they would have told me.

“Andrew Pearson,” Verity replied. “His parents have been nagging Wilkens about sending their son on a practicum. When Wilkens said no, they went to Trubshaw and pressured him into okaying a drop. Badri and Finch refused to send Pearson without his tutor’s approval, so Trubshaw filed some paperwork making himself Pearson’s tutor, and sent Pearson over to Jesus with a note saying that our net was too busy and could they please send him through.”

“Which they did,” Badri said. “We didn’t know anything about it until afterwards, when the Jesus tech sent me the fix.”

“And he missed his rendezvous?” I asked.

“Yes,” Badri said. “Trubshaw was against sending a retrieval team, but we put one together, anyway. Since Pearson’s drop was supposed to be flash-time, he was already overdue by the time the team was ready.”

“What happened to him?” Kivrin asked.

“Got into a brawl in a tavern with a Roman soldier, who gutted him,” Badri said. “The team got back with his body less than an hour ago. There’s more. Trubshaw got the drop coordinates from an assignment Wilkens did thirty-seven years ago.”

“So Wilkens…” I said.

“Was there,” Badri confirmed.

After dinner, I went back to Balliol to look for Phoebe, Kat, and Taki. Andrew’s death would be announced the following day, but I wanted to tell them privately, as they’d known Andrew better than anyone.

“How did it happen?” Phoebe asked, looking stricken. “An accident?”

“A fight,” I told her. “Trubshaw sent him to observe everyday life at a garrison town in Gaul. He should have been safe enough, if he’d kept his head down.”

Kat shook her head. “His Latin was abysmal, and he didn’t know nearly as much as he should about contemp culture. Wilkens was dead set against sending him on a drop. He told Andrew he’d need to stay on another year if he wanted to become a practical historian.”

“But this is Andrew,” Taki said. “Not known for being patient. He got drunk?”

I nodded. “Drunk enough to think it a good idea to start a fight with a Roman soldier.”

“That damned sword,” Kat said, referring to the gladius I’d sometimes seen Andrew brandishing about. “I think that’s why he chose Ancient History in the first place, so he could play with a sword.”

“He wasn’t very good at it,” I said. They turned to stare at me in surprise. “Remember, I’m interested in the Crusades? Dunworthy arranged for me to have lessons.”

He’d done it when I turned sixteen. When I was twelve, we’d talked about the various skills I’d need to become a medievalist, but he’d put off any training in bladed weapons until he thought I was mature enough. I could remember sitting knee-to-knee with him while he quietly told me he was trusting me to take the lessons seriously, as I could easily hurt myself or others if I behaved carelessly. Somehow, his solemn lecture had been far more effective than any sort of threat would have been. I’d worked hard at those lessons, and still tried to keep my hand in, although I hadn’t practiced nearly often enough since my accident.

Phoebe said, “Do you suppose he did it on purpose?” and it was her turn to be stared at. “Think about it. What were his chances of passing his exams this year? Any year?”

“That’s awful,” Kat said, but I could see she was considering it.

Taki nodded. “Yes, but he did have rather destructive impulses when things weren’t going the way he liked.”

“So he just decided to kill himself?” Kat exclaimed.

“I doubt he planned it,” Taki said quickly. “But look at how he behaved last spring, lashing out at everyone when he felt pressured. He didn’t need to become a practical historian. It’s not as if he intended to work as an historian, but his family expected him to get an Oxford degree, for appearance’s sake.”

“So why push for a practicum?” Kat asked.

“Why do you think? To chat up people,” Phoebe replied.

“Exactly,” Taki said. “And what would make a better story than, ‘I beat a Roman soldier in a swordfight’? Whether he passed his finals or not, he’d still have the story to tell. That’s just the sort of thing that would occur to him if he’d had a few too many.”

We fell silent for a moment, acknowledging the truth of Taki’s observation, then I said, “There’s something else you should know. I’m not sure if they’ll announce it tomorrow or not, but it will come out eventually.”

“What?” Phoebe said.

“Trubshaw got the coordinates for the practicum off an assignment Wilkens did in 2026,” I said.

“Wilkens was there?” Kat said. “He saw it?”

“Yes,” I said. “It was his practicum.”

“And he didn’t remember Andrew?” Taki said.

“No,” I said. “It was nearly forty years ago. Andrew and the soldier had already drawn their blades when Wilkens arrived, so he wasn’t exactly focusing on their faces.”

“Imagine witnessing something like that on your practicum,” Kat said softly. “Wilkens must feel dreadful. And he’ll be blamed, which isn’t fair.”

“Trubshaw will be blamed, and rightly so,” Phoebe said.

“The family will blame everyone but Andrew and themselves,” Taki predicted. “No one ever seems to believe that time travel can be dangerous until it’s too late.”

The conversation drifted into speculation about whether the Pearsons would sue Oxford and whether Andrew would receive a posthumous degree. I tried to follow the discussion, but couldn’t shake the ominous feeling which had overtaken me. I realized I’d convinced myself that Polly and the others were trapped, but safe. What if they weren’t?

July 2063

Verity invited me ’round for dinner two weeks before graduation, saying only that James had been asking for me. James met me at the door. He and Cyril were apparently working in concert, because Cyril vigorously licked my shoes while James wrapped himself around my knees.

“Does he have a shoe fetish for everyone or is it just me?” I asked Ned, while hoisting a gleeful James up to my shoulders.

“Verity’s shoes are safe, but Cyril shows no respect whatsoever for mine, and he sleeps with James’ shoes when he can get them,” he answered. “At least it’s not chewing any longer, although it’s rather disconcerting to handle drooly shoes. James! Come down from there,” he said, removing a protesting James. “You may not sit on people if you’re going to pull their hair.”

Verity handed me a glass of wine as James began to wail in earnest. “He’ll give it up in a minute,” she said. “He’s going through a hair-pulling phase. Last week it was Cyril’s tail.”

“Cyril hasn’t got a tail,” I said.

“That’s probably why he’s moved on to easier targets,” Verity said. “Come on through. Kiv’s in the kitchen and we’re nearly ready.”

By the time we sat down, James had got over his tantrum and wanted me to sit next to him. Cyril was watching him intently, waiting for James to drop something. I noticed that James knocked food off his tray only when he thought his parents weren’t looking.

“We have a proposition,” Ned announced.

“What sort of proposition?” I asked, as a bite of chicken went overboard.

“Lady Schrapnell is looking to engage new historians for Retrievals,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have time to do any research if I worked for Retrievals,” I said, as a fistful of peas joined the chicken. “I’ve seen what Lady’s Schrapnell’s like.”

“You would be working on the retrieval of significant objects,” Verity said. “And possibly attending graduate school on a part-time basis.”

“Lady Schrapnell wants to hire me to find the missing historians?” I asked, as Cyril gobbled down a bit of dropped carrot.

“James, stop feeding Cyril,” Verity said. “He has his own food, and no, you may not share it.” James looked at her as if he’d understood every word but was trying to decide whether or not to obey her. She frowned at him expectantly until he reluctantly went back to eating his dinner.

“Yes, she wants to hire you” Ned told me. “How else were you going to support yourself while searching for them?”

I ducked my head. “Mum’s rather well off,” I said.

“Hence the steady stream of younger men,” Kivrin said.

“Accessories,” I agreed. “In any case, I’ll be coming into a tidy sum from my father’s estate when I turn twenty-one. Not enough to be truly rich, but certainly enough to live on, if I’m careful with expenses. Why does Lady Schrapnell want to hire me?”

“Apart from being fond of Dunworthy, the closures have hurt recruiting for Time Travel and Retrievals,” Ned said. “People are worried about getting stuck on assignment.”

“And what’s this about graduate school?” I asked.

“It’s quite likely that you’ll do enough research to justify a degree,” Kivrin said.

“I know that. But I could be a part-time student?”

“It’s possible, yes,” Verity said.

“But Trubshaw—” I said.

“Is resigning,” Kivrin said. “He’ll continue teaching until we’ve recruited a new historian.”

“Is that down to the Pearsons?” I asked.

“It’s down to Balliol," Kivrin said. "Trubshaw abused his position. Wilkens is the new Acting Head of History. He shouldn’t represent an obstacle for you.”

“So you could take the job and be a part-time student,” Verity continued.

“How part-time?” I said warily.

“Enough part-time that you could work a full-time job. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Ned said.

Yes, it was what I wanted, although I hadn’t expected to get it. Time to do research, the possibility of an advanced degree, and someone paying me to do it. For the moment, I regretted every uncharitable thought I’d ever had about Lady Schrapnell.

“Of course, Lady Schrapnell has conditions,” Ned said.

Well, that hadn’t lasted long. “What conditions?” I asked.

“That you coordinate your efforts with the retrieval team,” Verity said. “Basically, that you keep us—and Lady Schrapnell—informed of your progress.”

At my present rate of progress, such a briefing would take less than five minutes. I’d been trudging through the housing records for Whitechapel for months, without turning up anything about the Hodbins.

“Also, that you not overextend yourself to the detriment of your health,” Ned said.

I could detect Kivrin’s hand in that one. I turned to her and said, “No naps.”

Kivrin smiled into her wine, as James crowed, “No naps! No naps!”

“That will do, James,” Ned said. He turned to me and said, “So, what do you think?”

“I think… I think I’d like to wait for Mr. Dunworthy before going to graduate school.”

“Very well,” Verity said. “You can always re-apply later. What about the job?”

“How can I say no?”

Andrew received a posthumous honorary degree at my graduation ceremony. “The only bloody way he’d have got one,” Taki muttered, which earned him a sharp jab in the ribs from Phoebe.

“Well, it’s true,” Kat whispered on his other side. “Stupid sod,” she said, as her eyes filled with tears. The four of us were still shocked by Andrew’s death and not quite sure how to handle the conflicting emotions we felt. We’d all liked him in the beginning, and although that initial feeling had gradually given way to other, less positive emotions, it was hard not to miss the Andrew we’d been fond of.

I missed Dunworthy, too, most acutely on that day. He would have been so pleased to see me take a First. I found myself still wavering about graduate school. An advanced degree would give me more stature within the academic community, and I might need that someday. On the other hand, I truly did want to be Dunworthy’s student, and after three years as an undergraduate, I chafed at the idea of spending even more time on schooling instead of retrieval research.

The Pearsons had chosen not to attend graduation. The rumor was they’d threatened to sue until the University’s legal counsel reminded them that Andrew had been arrested twice for public intoxication and had fought with the arresting officer both times.

My mother actually came to the ceremony, although she was alone. She hadn’t married her latest livein, after all. When I asked after him, she said, “That’s in the past, dear. Best to move on.”

When she asked me about my post-graduation plans, I told her I’d taken a job with Lady Schrapnell. “Lovely woman,” she said. “Very energetic. It’s good you’ve given up on this missing historian nonsense.”

“Mum, that’s specifically what I’m being hired to do,” I told her. “Lady Schrapnell thinks retrieving the missing historians is important.”

“Oh, well then… as long as you’re not still moping over that girl,” she said, and I was freshly reminded why I only saw my mother on rare occasions.

Taki and Phoebe had also been hired by Ned, but they’d be working on the retrieval of nonsignificant objects. Kat was planning to attend graduate school on a full-time basis. I was glad of that, for Wilkens’ sake, as he was blaming himself for Andrew’s death.

I was supposed to start work in mid-August. Kivrin had been nudging me to take a holiday, but I opted instead for more scar work. I went back to Ferguson and told him to do the work he’d planned on my leg and abdomen, but not to work on the arm just yet.

“I’ll probably be doing a lot of research drops between 1960 and 1995,” I said. “I’d rather not have any easily visible scars that would help people remember me. Once World War II opens, I may come back to get the arm done. For now, the leg and abdomen should be enough if I need to go to World War II on short notice.”

“Let me do the arm above the elbow,” Ferguson suggested. “That won’t show, even with your cuffs rolled up, and that’s the truly deep part of the wound. The bit extending down to your wrist is shallower and wouldn’t require hospitalization. Or I could even do a separate wound, just near the wrist.”

I agreed, and spent the next week in hospital, mercifully more asleep than awake. Ferguson had begun to explain to me how he created the deep-looking wounds, but the process sounded so gruesome that I’d told him I’d rather not know how it was done. Even after I got out of hospital, pain and fatigue kept me resting most of the time for another ten days.

By the time I was ready to begin work, Retrievals had sorted out an office for me. It was small, but private. I transferred most of my research notes from Dunworthy’s rooms to the office. I didn’t feel strong enough yet to go on another drop to scour more housing records, so I continued reviewing photographs I’d taken of the Dunkirk articles during my practicum. I’d been steadily working my way through them at odd moments all year, giving more priority to locating Merope through the evacuees.

There were no obvious allusions to Michael in the articles. Although I’d been carefully constructing a chart of people and boats mentioned in the Dunkirk articles, I had the feeling that some important fact I’d once known had escaped my grasp. And why did I think it had something to do with Mr. Dunworthy?

December 2063

By November, I’d discovered the Hodbins’ address in Whitechapel. Their tenement had been destroyed in early 1941. I checked the casualty lists for that night, but couldn’t find their names. Their mother’s name, however, was on a list of casualties for the Blitz, so Alf and Binnie had likely perished with her. On the off chance they hadn’t, I’d also checked British prison rosters between the late 1940s and 1990. Mrs. Bartley had told me the Hodbin children were “born to be hanged”. Apparently, they hadn’t survived long enough to meet her expectations.

We’d located some of Lady Denewell’s letters and had determined that Merope had not gone with her when the manor became a riflery school. Had she gone to London?

I began making lists of which newspapers I hadn’t checked for 1940 and 1941, and considered extending my search into 1942 and beyond. Also, I made a list of which anniversaries might inspire a fresh spate of news articles. I began trawling through indices of World War II letters and diaries that had been retained by various museums and archives, but a depressing number of those weren’t catalogued properly. Many of them had descriptions so vague I’d need to review them all in person.

Another Christmas came. For me, it was always the time of year when I missed Dunworthy the most, perhaps because I’d first met him at Christmas. Ned and Verity hosted their customary party, which was a bit livelier than usual this year, as we were celebrating Badri’s engagement to Linna. Earlier in the week, Taki and Phoebe had told me they were planning to marry. Everyone’s lives seemed to be moving forward but my own.

After the party, I walked over to Dunworthy’s rooms. I’d got in the habit of visiting them on Christmas Eve. I sat on the window seat, staring at the blackboards, willing them to give me some hint, some tiny clue of where to begin. I grew too tired to walk home, so I grabbed a blanket and pillow, turned out the light, and curled up on the window seat, still studying the blackboards by moonlight.

I fell asleep and dreamt of Dunkirk. I was a soldier, crammed onto a tiny boat with far too many other soldiers. My right leg hurt abominably, but I said nothing because there were other men wounded just as badly, if not worse. I could make out the sound of someone praying but couldn’t see who it was in the crush. There was a flash and a bang, and then I found myself in the Channel.

I was tumbling over and over in the water, trying to hold my breath and work out which way was up when I realized I was no longer in the Atlantic. I was in the Thames, and was no longer an adult, and Mr. Dunworthy was going to be angry.

I woke with a gasp, remembering. The summer I was thirteen, I’d befriended the son of a don at Magdalen and we’d often gone boating together. One day, he’d had to cancel our plans at the last minute. I’d gone out on the river alone, something Dunworthy had expressly forbidden. The boat had capsized and I’d spent several frightening minutes flailing about in the water until I got my bearings. I’d ended up chasing the loose boat all the way to the next lock.

By the time I got back to Balliol, Dunworthy had heard about it. I’d been sent to bed in disgrace after a heated telling off, and one of the essays he’d given me as punishment had been about Dunkirk.

I was suddenly certain that the lost fact, the half-memory that had been tantalizing me for months, was buried somewhere in that essay. I thought about going back to my flat, but I was only half-awake and not inclined to take a long walk in the freezing cold. Instead, I scrawled the word “essay” on Dunworthy’s blackboard before stumbling back to the window seat, hoping the groggy inspiration that seemed so vital in the middle of the night could withstand the scrutiny of morning.

I woke slowly, vaguely recalling that I’d had a dream I considered important. Seeing the word “essay” hastily written in huge letters on Dunworthy’s blackboard sent a fizzing jolt up my spine. I put on my shoes, grabbed my jacket, and rushed home.

It didn’t take me long to find the essay in question. Skimming it hurriedly, I came across the puzzle piece I’d been looking for: a mention of Private David Hardy, who’d been rescued at Dunkirk and had made additional trips across the Channel to rescue five hundred and nineteen other men.

Did it mean anything?

Someone who’d saved that many people would likely have been interviewed by many reporters. Had one of them been Michael?

Chapter Text

January 2064

I brought up the subject of Private Hardy during my next meeting with the retrieval team. Following Ned’s instructions, I’d spent the latter half of 2063 tying up various loose ends from my practicum: going through housing records and prison rosters, reviewing previously unread documents, and compiling lists of things I’d like to try next. After the dream I’d had in Dunworthy’s rooms, interviewing Private Hardy had catapulted to the top of my list.

“So this is where things stand,” I said. “I don’t have a way at present to get a handle on Mr. Dunworthy’s location. The same goes for Polly: there simply isn’t enough detailed information in newspapers or archives about shopgirls. I’ve reached something of a dead end with chasing the evacuees because no local records for Warwickshire were retained. The national Evacuation Committee kept records, and I know they were moved to a location in the City before the Pandemic, but those records were subsequently destroyed by the pinpoint bomb at St. Paul’s. I haven't discovered where they were kept before being moved to the City. Instead of searching archives in the early 60s, closer to World War II, I think I should go to the 1980s, when more material had been declassified and properly catalogued and indexed.”

“So you’d like to do some out-of-order drops,” Ned said.

“Yes,” I answered. “I know that you and Finch have been avoiding that, but we haven’t seen any slippage increases since the closure nearly four years ago and the temporal map is stable. I think it’s worth the risk.”

Ned exchanged glances with Finch and said, “We’ll consider it.”

“There’s something else,” I said. “I’d like to locate and interview some of the Dunkirk survivors, to see if any of them were interviewed by Michael.”

“That’s quite a needle in a haystack,” Kivrin said.

“It is,” I agreed, “but I have someone particular in mind to interview first. Private David Hardy. After being rescued himself, he went on subsequent trips and helped bring back over five hundred other soldiers. He sounds like the sort of person reporters would have sought out.”

“Including Michael,” Finch said. “Why don’t you begin with the search for Hardy while we consider the out-of-order drops? We’ve discussed relaxing that restriction before. Perhaps now is the time to try it, on a limited basis."

It took me a week to find Private Hardy, who’d finished the war as a sergeant. Choosing the best time to interview him took a bit longer.

“I’ve found Hardy,” I told Ned. “I’d like to interview him as a reporter. I’ll say I’m doing an article for an anniversary of Dunkirk. I’d like to go to May of 1960, in time for the twentieth anniversary.”

“Where have you been in 1960, so far?” he asked.

“April, the first half of May, and late June.”

“Too tight.”

“But the slippage on my drops has been minimal,” I protested.

“Couldn’t you go for the twenty-fifth anniversary? Can you find Hardy then?”

“Yes,” I said reluctantly. I’d already checked it out, fearing that Ned wouldn’t let me travel to 1960. “If I do that, can you promise me I haven’t just killed everything between June 1960 and May 1965?”

“Yes,” he said. “I realize it seems overcautious to you, and we’ll likely be willing to cut things more closely after you’ve done some out-of-order drops without incident, but—”

“So I can go to the 1980s? Without losing access to the earlier decades?” I said excitedly.

“Yes,” he said. “Finch and I are willing to risk it, if you are. Why don’t you see if there are some other people you can interview while you’re looking up Hardy, since this may be the only crack you’ll get at the twenty-fifth anniversary.”

I’d agreed and gone off to develop some other prospects. Months passed while I first looked for memorable boats and then tried to locate the men who’d sailed them. Most of the little ships had not been piloted by their owners, and the only records I could find were scattered and incomplete. Some of the pilots that I could identify had died by 1965. I finally settled on the Medway Queen, a paddle steamer that had made seven round trips, rescuing 7,000 men, and the Tamzine, a fishing boat less than five meters in length, believed to be the smallest boat used in the evacuation.

Kivrin came round my office one evening in May to make sure I was eating properly. I assured her I was, but she eyed my lanky frame skeptically and said, “Either you’ve dropped weight or you’re having another growth spurt. And even you can’t grow forever.” I groaned to myself, foreseeing a multitude of evenings when Kivrin would happen to drop by my office at the end of her workday. “Come on, you” she said. “Let’s go and eat”.

I’d thought we were going to Hall, but she led me to one of my favorite pubs. I slowly unwound over a pint and some food, and began to feel that perhaps she was right about not working so late in the evenings.

“So which one are you visiting first?” she asked, after I told her I’d identified two additional targets.

“Hardy,” I said, around a mouthful of cottage pie.

“Really?” she said. “I would have thought the Tamzine seemed a more likely target for Michael’s interest. Setting off in such a tiny boat sounds pretty heroic to me.” She sat there, patiently waiting for me to say something.

“I just have a strong feeling about Hardy.”

“Mmhmm,” she said dryly. “Going to share?”

“I had a dream, back at Christmas, the night I slept in Dunworthy’s rooms,” I admitted. I explained about the essay, then said apologetically, “I know it sounds mad. It’s not as if I think Dunworthy’s communicating with me across the decades or anything.”

“It’s not mad. Has it occurred to you that one of the references you used for that essay may have mentioned an American reporter in passing?”

“No,” I said, mentally kicking myself. Why hadn’t I gone through the books in Dunworthy’s study?

“Clearly not,” she said. “Not doing well on the sleeping and eating again?”

“I’ll do better,” I said, shamefaced.

“Yes, you will,” she said, “or I’ll be doing it for you.”

“I’m not—”

“My responsibility?” she said. “Yes, you are, until Mr. Dunworthy comes home. So you want to visit Hardy first. Where are you staying, and how long do you think it will take to do all three of your interviews?”

I answered her, and then she told me about her latest drop, to the late fourteenth century. She’d posed as a widow going on a religious pilgrimage to pray for the souls of her dead husband and children. Before long, she had me laughing at the antics of the group she’d been traveling with.

One day, perhaps, I’d journey with her as a servant or brother. For now, I had a pilgrimage of my own to complete.

May 1965

I came through on the emergency staircase in St. Paul’s Station. By now, I was used to it. Unlike my previous trips, I intended to stay in a private hotel room this time. I needed to make and receive telephone calls and wanted some privacy for them.

I rode the Underground to a hotel in northwest London. I planned to do more research in the British Museum's newspaper library if I had any time between interview appointments. Before I’d even unpacked my bag, I called David Hardy. His wife said he might be willing to do an interview and asked me to ring again that evening.

I had more luck with the elderly man who’d captained the Tamzine. He wasn’t willing to give me an interview in person, but spoke to me for nearly an hour over the telephone. He remembered nothing about any American newspaper reporters.

The man who’d captained the Medway Queen wasn’t willing to speak to me at all. “I didn’t have any use for reporters twenty-five years ago and I don’t now,” he said, before putting down the receiver with a crash. I began to think I might be returning to Oxford the very next day. I decided to skip unpacking until I’d spoken to David Hardy.

I spent the rest of my day reading newspapers without making any discoveries. I treated myself to a nice dinner and then went for a brief walk to keep myself from pacing in my hotel room. At eight, I tried the Hardy residence again. David answered, and almost immediately agreed to an interview. I suggested a pub near his workplace and we agreed to meet for drinks the following evening.

Next day, I spent the morning in the reading room, then got on an afternoon train for Sheffield. I reached the pub before Hardy, and nursed a pint while trying to settle my nerves.

Every time I’d interviewed a person or stepped into an archive, I’d wrestled with my feelings. Part of me would excitedly think, This is it: this could be the clue that brings them home, while another part would say, You’re wasting your time. You’re never going to find them. After years of searching, I was well acquainted with the emotional rollercoaster but found myself riding it all the same.

Hardy turned up at six on the dot. He was a heavily freckled middle-aged man with thinning hair and a pleasant demeanor. I could tell at once that this would be an easy interview, even if it weren’t a productive one, and felt myself relax. “Tell me about your experiences at Dunkirk,” I said, and he launched into his story with no further urging.

He told me about what it had been like to retreat to the beaches, only to find no boats there waiting for them. He’d huddled on the beach for days, waiting for rescue. “I thought I was doomed, and then I saw a light.”

“A light?” I asked, thinking perhaps he’d seen a flare.

“A signal light. Someone was waving a torch, and if I hadn’t seen it, I probably would have been on that beach when the Germans came. It led me straight to a boat. The boat was small and incredibly crowded, but I managed to get myself on board. I was never more glad to be anywhere in my entire life, even with the seasickness.

“When we got to Dover, I helped off-load the wounded. Some of them were badly injured, especially a fellow who’d mangled his foot unfouling the propeller back at Dunkirk. Owe him my life, I do.”

“What was the name of the boat?” I asked gently.

“The first one? The Lady Jane. It re-fueled and went back out again. I had a good meal and some sleep and then went out again on the Mary Rose, and later on the Bonnie Lass. I made four trips in all and rescued five hundred and nineteen men, but you likely know that, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“What were you thinking when you decided to go back?” I said.

“I was glad to be alive, and I thought all the men still on the beach deserved the same chance I’d had."

“You must have been interviewed about it dozens of times back in 1940,” I said, hoping that one of those interviews had been with Michael.

“Actually not,” he said. “That came later. I broke my shoulder blade on the last trip over, dodging a Messerschmitt, so they took me away to hospital. And then the bloody thing wouldn’t heal properly, so they sent me to Orpington for surgery, but that was all right. The man who'd saved my life was there, so I got a chance to thank him properly.”

“Oh?” I said, wondering whether Michael had interviewed the man with the mangled foot. “Perhaps I should look him up. Do you know where he is now?”

“No,” Hardy said. “He left hospital soon after I arrived, and I never saw him again. I tried to find him after the war but…” He shrugged.

“So you know his name?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, I asked the sister about him after he left. He was a war correspondent for some paper in America. His name was Mike Davis.”

Christ. “When did you get to Orpington?” I asked, trying to contain my excitement.

“September. I was there for nearly six weeks,” Hardy said. “They do good work, though. Fixed my shoulder and they managed to save Davis’ foot. Eventually I returned to duty and got into a few other scrapes before the end of the war.”

I’d seen his military record. His “scrapes” had earned him two medals and an additional hospital stay. “The boats you were on during the Dunkirk rescue. Do you know where they originally sailed from?”

“No,” Hardy said slowly, turning it over in his head. “Hang on. The first one, the Lady Jane, was crewed by an old man and a boy. When I asked about Davis after he left Orpington, one of the volunteers told me she’d written a letter to the old man, Commander… something or other, pretty sure it started with an H… Howard? Harold? Hamilton? She sent it to a village down in Sussex or Kent called something-on-Sea, so I suppose that’s where the Lady Jane came from. No idea where the other boats came from, but I was damned glad they turned out. So were the soldiers we took on board.”

We chatted for a while longer, as I asked him about his experiences during the rest of the war, then his wife turned up.

“Come along now, you promised me I wouldn’t be cooking tonight,” she said fondly.

“This is my wife, Wendy,” Hardy said. “She did her bit during the war, too.”

She smiled at me and said dismissively, “I was a typist for the War Office. Not terribly exciting, I’m afraid.”

Typist, my arse, I thought, blinking slowly as I chatted with them for a while before thanking Hardy for the interview. After they left, I spent a few minutes reviewing my notes and jotting down additional details while it was all still fresh in my mind.

I was halfway back to London before I realized I might have got some dinner at the pub. And this is how you get into trouble with Kiv, I thought to myself, ignoring the small details while chasing after the big ones. I resolved to get a decent meal and a good night’s rest as soon as I got back to the hotel, then turned my attention to other matters.

Should I stay here a few more days, and search for Michael’s records from Orpington? There might have been a mention of where he’d intended to go after leaving hospital. And how should I go about locating Commander Howard/Harold/Hamilton? If he’d been an old man in 1940, he’d be dead by now, but the boy might still be living. How many villages were there in Kent and Sussex named something-on-Sea?

I decided the best course of action would be to return to Oxford as soon as possible. It had taken less than two days in 1965 to find a lead to Davies, but I’d spent months prepping for those two days. Locating Commander Howard might take even longer.

May 2064

Badri seemed mildly surprised to see me stepping out of the net. “Back so soon? It must have been a bust.”

I smiled at him. “Not entirely,” I said. “What time is it?”

“Half-past four,” he told me.

“Quick meeting tonight, then, in Dunworthy’s rooms,” I said. “I’ll let the others know.”

By the time everyone arrived, I’d had a chance to print the picture I’d taken of Wendy and David Hardy.

“This,” I said, pointing to Hardy, “is the erstwhile Private Hardy. He’s the soldier who went back to Dunkirk and helped rescue five hundred men.” I taped the photograph to Dunworthy’s board and then moved over to Michael’s, where I’d already written down Hardy’s name. “His first trip back from Dunkirk was on the Lady Jane. There was a man on the Lady Jane who was badly injured while untangling debris from the propeller. Hardy credits that man with saving his life, and by extension, the lives of the five hundred men. That man was Michael.”

There was a collective gasp, then Badri said, “You think he caused the incongruity?”

“Possibly,” I said. “Temporal theory holds that positive actions can have negative outcomes. In any case, Michael’s foot was mangled. Hardy helped him onto a stretcher, rested, and then went back to Dunkirk. Hardy himself was wounded on his final trip, and eventually ended up in the military hospital in Orpington, where he saw Michael again.”

“And then what?” Ned asked.

“Michael left the hospital shortly after Hardy arrived. Hardy doesn’t know where he went, but the Lady Jane was captained by a Commander Howard or Harold, from a city in Sussex or Kent called something-on-Sea. If I can find this Commander Howard, I might be able to learn more about Michael. Also, I thought I’d go through the hospital records.”

“I have a question,” Kivrin said. “Why is Hardy’s picture on Dunworthy’s board instead of Michael’s?”

“This,” I said, pointing at the picture, “is a middle-aged Wendy Armitage. Interesting coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Dunworthy’s Wren?” Finch said in mild disbelief. “She married the man Michael saved?”

“I don’t like this,” Badri said. “Unlikely coincidences—”

“Are thought to be a sign of net damage,” I agreed. “But they’d known each other since childhood. It’s not that odd they should have married.”

“It is if both of them should have died,” Badri said, for which I had no answer.

August 2064

By August, I’d finally convinced Kivrin I was capable of eating regularly without being prompted, but she was still concerned by how much time I spent at a desk.

“You’re too isolated, and not active enough,” she said. “I want you to take up your swordfighting lessons again, or some other regular physical activity that gets you out of the office.”

I complained about her to Kat over lunch one day. “I should have gone to Cambridge,” I told her.

“Because…?” Kat said.

“No one there knew me as a child,” I said. “Everyone here is still so overprotective, especially Kivrin.”

Kat laughed. “And you think Wilkens doesn’t fuss over every scratch I get on assignment? Being overprotective seems to be part of the job.”

I thought about Dunworthy, dashing off after Polly when his own deadline was much closer than hers. Perhaps Kat was right.

I did resume combat lessons, as well as weight training to give me enough strength to handle a longsword easily. Once I’d got beyond the soreness, I found I appreciated the diversion and seemed to be concentrating better at work.

It had taken me months of research in 2064 and 1985 to admit I had no further clues as to Michael’s whereabouts. I was actually able to find evidence that he’d been at Orpington from June to September, but still had no idea where he’d gone after September 1940.

“If it wasn’t on his discharge papers, perhaps it was on some other paperwork,” a reference librarian in 1985 had suggested. “Wouldn’t he have needed a new identity card and ration book when he left hospital? It’s likely the ones he had were lost or damaged at Dunkirk.”

With her help, I’d located records for the Assistance Board, which had given Michael a train ticket to Dover. More importantly, I’d found a passport application stating that Mike Davis had been a reporter for the Omaha Observer and that his editor had been James Dunworthy. Sometimes I’d lain awake in the early morning, worrying that the American reporter who’d saved Hardy hadn’t been our Mike Davis. At least that concern could be laid to rest.

If Michael had gone to Dover, presumably he’d been returning to his drop. What next?

I decided that there was nothing to be lost by pursuing Commander Howard, but the Lady Jane wasn’t on the list of boats recruited for the Small Vessels Pool. It wasn’t registered, either, but many small watercraft hadn’t been.

I was going to have to visit every bloody something-on-Sea village in Sussex and Kent to ask the residents about the Lady Jane. And hope that the village actually had been in Sussex or Kent and hadn’t been named something-Sur-La-Mer or something-on-Water.

“I’m going out again,” I told Ned the next day. “I want to find this something-on-Sea village. It could take a while.”

“Which year do you intend to visit?” he asked.

“1960,” I said. “July would do, any time after my last visit.”

“Very well. Let me know if there's anything you need.”

By now, I was well-versed in prepping for drops. I prepared an implant with a map of all the places I’d like to visit, including the something-Sur-La-Mer ones, just in case. I was still young enough to pass for an undergraduate, so I’d go as a student, enjoying the summer weather and seaside villages while trying to locate the boat that had rescued my father.

July 1960

I’d been looking forward to lazing in the sunshine as I meandered from town to town, searching for the something-on-Sea the Lady Jane had come from. I’d schooled myself to think of this drop as an unofficial holiday, as I thought that might make the search seem less tedious. I’d neglected what should have been a basic aspect of my prep: checking the weather report.

It was unusually cool and wet for July, and there were countless thunderstorms. A few days after my arrival, I read in the newspapers that there’d been a tornado in the Cotswolds. I realized how fortunate I was to be in Kent and vowed never to go on a drop again without checking the weather.

I began my search at Birchington-on-Sea, about twenty miles north of Dover and less than ten miles from Ramsgate, the harbor where the fleet of little ships had assembled before setting off for Dunkirk. The Tamzine had come from Birchington-on-Sea, and I was hoping the Lady Jane had as well.

I soon learned the primary obstacle on this assignment wouldn’t be the weather, however dreary. My biggest problem was talkativeness. I didn’t have any difficulty finding people willing to speak to me, but focusing conversation and disengaging from it were ongoing challenges. I’d meant to spend a few hours in Birchington-on-Sea, then walk to the next village and finish there by sunset. By the evening of the first day, I was still in Birchington-on-Sea and had heard enough stories about Dunkirk to write an article, although none of the stories were about the Lady Jane. I’d also received advice about the best places to stay while traveling in Kent, a confused recitation of the bus schedule, a lecture on the importance of taking care of livestock, and the semi-scandalous life stories of half a dozen prominent townspeople, told, no doubt, by their sworn enemies.

The next morning, I walked to Westgate-on-Sea, less than two miles away. It took an age to get anyone in the pub to talk about something other than the weather. No one there remembered the Lady Jane, although I was treated to an extended complaint about the bus service and a lively debate on the comparative virtues of ale and stout. The discussion was accompanied by the steady consumption of said ale and stout, which made the ensuing darts competition rather perilous. I booked a room in the pub for the night. The bed was comfortable enough, but the darts and drinking competition lasted until closing.

After walking back to Birchington-on-Sea, I caught a bus to Leysdown-on-Sea for more speculation about the stormy weather and an argument about the best way to grow marrows. I was told the war record of every man and woman in the village, although none of them had heard of a Commander Howard. Two of the men had given interviews to an American war correspondent, which pricked up my ears until I learned the reporter in question had been writing for the New York Times.

By the time I reached Minster on Sea, I'd begun to worry that I’d need to visit every seaside village from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. Little ships had gathered at Ramsgate from all over the British coast. I’d started in Kent because I knew Michael’s drop was supposed to have been six miles north of Dover, but I had no idea how or when Michael had ended up on the Lady Jane. He certainly hadn’t found the Lady Jane in Minster on Sea, because no one there had heard of her.

From Minster on Sea, I traveled south to Lydd-on-Sea, where it had been impossible to direct conversation away from contradictory accounts of a slanging match between the vicar and his wife that had taken place outside the grocer’s that morning. After moving on from that to a discussion of bulldogs, I’d been able to ask my questions. One of the locals had a vague recollection that there had been a Lady Jane somewhere nearby on the coast… or had it been a Lady Margaret?

Since it was such a fine afternoon, I decided to walk on to the next village rather than wait for a bus. I got caught in a vicious thunderstorm, and arrived in Saltram-on-Sea tired, wet, and shivering. I immediately booked a room and went upstairs to change. Most of the clothing in my duffel was also wet by now, but I found some things from the center of the bag that were only dampish. I spread out my clothing to dry and went downstairs for a hot meal.

I was all in, and thinking of saving my questions for the morning. When the fortyish barmaid asked me why I’d come to Saltram-on-Sea and how long I’d be stopping, I told her I was trying to find the Lady Jane and the old man who had saved my father’s life.

“The Lady Jane?” she said. “She was lost at sea.”

I nearly choked on my ale. “She made at least one trip there and back,” I said. “My dad was on her. So was a private named David Hardy, who went back on other trips and rescued five hundred men.”

She stared at me, then said, “I’ll be back with your food,” before rushing off. When she returned, she brought my food and her husband, who did the cooking.

“You want to know about the Lady Jane?” the man asked, introducing himself as Reggie Glover.

“Yes, please,” I said, “and about the people who crewed her. I’ve been told it was an old man and a boy, and that the man was called Commander.”

“Commander Harold,” he said, “although he was never in the Navy. The boy was his great-grandson Jonathan, a friend of mine. The Small Vessels Pool wouldn't take the Lady Jane, but they set off for Dunkirk, anyway. We never saw them again.”

And there went my hopes of finding news of Commander Harold, and through him, of Michael. I repeated the story I’d heard about the Lady Jane rescuing dozens of men in her own right, and indirectly contributing to the rescue of hundreds more, then asked, “Are there any relatives of Commander Harold here in Saltram-on-Sea? I’d like to thank them for what he did.”

“He had a granddaughter, Jonathan’s mum,” Reggie said. “But she went off to Yorkshire to be with her people years ago, right after Jonathan was lost.”

“Do you know where she went?” I asked. “Perhaps I could write to her.”

“Can’t say as I do, but the old postmistress might,” he said. “You can ask her in the morning.”

“Were there any American reporters here during the evacuation?” I asked. “Dad says there was an American who’d gone over with Commander Harold.”

“There might have been one,” Betty said. “I heard Daphne talk about one, but I never saw him myself. Daphne was very keen on American movie stars, though, so she might have invented him.”

“Perhaps I could speak to Daphne?” I said.

“She married and left Saltram-on-Sea years ago,” she said, “but I might be able to find an address. Her dad owned the pub before we did. I’ll look for it later; I have customers to serve just now.”

In the morning, Betty handed me an address for Daphne, “Although it’s an old one, I’m afraid. We fell out of touch during the war.”

She gave me directions to the post office, and after some rummaging the postmistress came up with a Yorkshire address for Mavis Powell, Jonathan’s mum. “It’s twenty years old, of course,” she said. “Still, it’s a start. It’s good of you to do this for your dad.”

I thanked her profusely and went back to the pub for my duffel. I had two names and out-of-date addresses. I was tempted to head straight for Yorkshire or Manchester, but one of the things that Verity and Kivrin had relentlessly drilled into me was that I should do research in the present rather than flounder about in the past. I returned to London, and Oxford.

December 2064

I spent the fall bouncing back and forth between my office and various archives in 2064 and 1985 while life went on around me. Lady Schrapnell had generously provided Time Travel with an enormous amount of new computational power, making it possible to generate temporal maps in a few days instead of weeks. Badri, Linna, and TJ had created an experimental mapping they weren't ready to discuss with anyone but seemed excited about. I took time away from my research to visit my mother in London and to stand up with Taki at his wedding to Phoebe.

Everywhere I looked, someone I knew was in love. My mother had acquired a new livein who seemed a vast improvement over his predecessors. Kat and her latest girlfriend were moving into a flat together and talking about marriage. Kivrin had begun dating Ian Kettering, the don who’d replaced Trubshaw. In all the years I’d known her, Kiv had dated only a handful of men, and usually not for long. I hoped this relationship would last and wondered if I’d marry someday.

I visited little James, who had not been impressed to learn that a younger brother or sister would be joining him in the new year. Badri and Linna were expecting, too.

Following a suggestion from Ned and Kivrin, I'd given up my flat at the end of summer, put some of my things in storage, and moved into Dunworthy's rooms.

“You travel so much these days, it's hardly worth keeping a flat,” Kivrin had pointed out.

It was true, and I'd stayed in Dunworthy's rooms countless times as a child, but it felt odd being there without him. Even though he'd been gone for years, I half-expected him to walk in the door at any moment, looking for a reference book.

By the end of December, I was ready to speak to Mavis Powell and Daphne Butcher. Mavis Powell, née Stickney, had died in Hornsea in 1961, and I expected to find her living there in 1960. Daphne Butcher had been more difficult to place. She’d been widowed during the war and had left Manchester for London. I eventually learned she’d remarried after the war and moved to a village in Berkshire.

Kivrin suggested I wait until January, as the lab would be lightly staffed if anything went wrong. “It's New Year's Eve,” she protested, “why not put it off for a day or two?”

“There's no point in putting it off, and it's taken me ages to get ready for this drop,” I said. “I'll be back in a few days. Save a bottle of champagne for me.”

August 1960

It seemed very odd, traveling from freezing December to the hottest part of summer. I'd tried to match the seasons if not the precise months for most of my drops, but wasn't inclined to wait until summer came round again. I tossed a coin and decided to begin the next phase of my search with Daphne, who'd married the owner of a pub in Hungerford.

“Yes, my dad owned a pub in Saltram-on-Sea,” Daphne said, while pulling a pint for me. “When I was young, I couldn't wait to get away from the place, but after everything that happened during the war, running a nice, cozy pub seemed just the ticket, so here I am.” She gave me a smile that was simultaneously flirtatious and noncommittal. “What was it you were wanting to know about Dad? He's been gone nearly ten years.”

“Actually, it's not your father I'm looking for news of,” I said. “I went to Saltram-on-Sea looking for information about Commander Harold, who saved my dad at Dunkirk. I was told they had a reporter with them. An American named Mike Davis.”

“Nearly lost his foot,” she said, nodding. “I visited him in Orpington.”

“You did?” I said hopefully. “Tell me about him.”

“He showed up at the pub the same day the boats went off to Dunkirk, looking for a lift to Dover. I told him Mr. Powney might help him, and he went off to find him but never did, because Mr. Powney had gone to Dunkirk himself. I've no idea how he ended up on the Lady Jane. He sent a letter to Commander Harold from hospital, only the Commander and Jonathan were dead by then and Mavis, that's Jonathan’s mum, had gone back to her people and we didn't know what to do. My dad decided to open the letter, and when we read it, we realized Mike didn't know about them dying, so I went to Orpington to break the bad news.”

“That must have been difficult,” I said, wondering why Michael had written Commander Harold. Had he been trying to leave a trail for a retrieval team? “Do you know where Davis went after leaving Orpington? My dad says he helped him board the Lady Jane. He's been trying to find him, all these years, to say thank you.”

“Somewhere in London. I used to have the address, but I don't anymore. Was it in Kensington or am I only imagining that?” she mused. “I did see him once more, you know. It was Christmas, and he came all the way to Manchester to see me, which was rather awkward, as I was newly married to my first husband. I'm afraid I rather broke his heart,” she said coquettishly.

“And no doubt many others, but what's a pretty girl to do?” I said, playing along. “This was Christmas of 1940?”

“Yes. My dad had told him about the men who came round the pub looking for him, only Dad didn't have their address. I'd taken it with me.”

“Tell me about the men who came looking for him,” I said, trying to squelch my excitement.

“Mike said they were reporters he'd met at Dunkirk. It was two men, a Mr. Watson and a Mr. Holmes. They were young, with posh accents and posh civilian clothes, and they knew all about Mike and how he'd been injured. They left their address with me, and I gave it to Mike. He seemed quite pleased to get it.”

Holmes and Watson. A retrieval team had come for Michael. We'd done it, somehow. “I don't suppose you recall the address you gave him? Perhaps they could help me find Mr. Davis.”

She frowned in concentration, then said, “Something in Kent. Near Hawkhurst, I think. In any case, he took the address and gave me a kiss, the cheeky devil. And me, just married to another man.”

She looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for another kiss. I was tempted to oblige her, considering what she'd just told me, but merely said, “I can see how he would have had difficulty restraining himself,” which seemed to please her.

“Will you be stopping in Hungerford for a bit? We have some rooms available,” she said.

“I'm afraid not,” I told her. “I need to get back to London. Thank you, though, for the information. You've been invaluable.”

I walked back to the railway station, feeling very excited but strangely queasy. It sounded as if Michael should have connected with a retrieval team at or just after Christmas of 1940. Someone in Oxford had made it through, so the war must have opened again. How much longer would we have to wait?

I took a series of trains to Hornsea, but arrived there too late to call on Mavis Powell. I had a bad night, twisting and turning with a vague stomach-ache. Perhaps it was the fish and chips I'd had for dinner. In the morning, I put on my tidiest clothing and set off for Mrs. Powell's, hoping she'd be willing to speak to a total stranger.

She was living with a niece who nearly shut the door in my face, but Mavis overruled her. Perhaps she was bored and welcomed any diversion. In any case, she invited me in and offered me tea and biscuits. I accepted, but ate sparingly, as my stomach was definitely feeling unsettled. I felt badly about dredging up what was undoubtedly a painful memory for her, and was having second thoughts about being there.

“You wanted to know about Granddad and my Jonathan,” she said.

“Yes,” I answered gently. “My dad's always been grateful to them for saving his life. He wondered what became of them and wanted to know a bit more about them, and about the American reporter who was with them at Dunkirk.”

“I don't know anything about any Americans,” she said, dashing my hopes, “and they were lost at sea. For a long time, I thought it was at Dunkirk.”

“It wasn't?” I said with some surprise.

“Oh, no,” she told me. “They passed much later. I received a letter in the summer of 1945. It was from the War Office, but the signature was illegible so I've no idea who sent it. It was fairly vague, but it said that Granddad and Jonathan had been killed in action shortly after D-Day and that they'd spent all those years doing secret work like smuggling downed pilots out of Europe.”

“Do you still have the letter?” I asked, hoping it contained some clue she hadn't mentioned.

“No,” she said, rather wistfully. “I was very angry at the time and burned it. To learn that Jonathan had survived all those years without contacting me... it was difficult for me to accept. But then the war did a lot of hard things to us. You're too young, I suppose, to truly understand that. But still... to know they were so very brave...”

“And that they saved so many lives,” I put in. “Likely, they did all sorts of things too secret for the War Office to hint at, even after the war.”

She nodded as if I'd said something comforting, and said, “Yes, they definitely did their bit.”

I thanked her for the tea and her time, still feeling like a heel for having disturbed her. By the time I got back to the railway station, my stomach was beginning to hurt in earnest, and I was no longer certain about the retrieval team. What if Watson and Holmes had been aliases for men engaged in secret work for the War Office? What could they have possibly wanted with Mike?

I spent the journey back to London debating the intentions of Watson and Holmes and trying to decide whether I should go to hospital. The intensifying pain in my stomach had gradually shifted from the center of my abdomen to the lower right side. It's my appendix, I thought. Bloody hell. I don't want to have surgery in 1960. Can I make it back to the drop?

I decided to try for it. Surely I could reach Oxford in the time it would take me to fill up forms in a contemp casualty department. I was sweating and in severe pain when I got to the emergency staircase in St. Paul's Station. I decided to enter it from one of the upper levels so I wouldn't have to walk up to the drop. Halfway down, I vomited and the pain was so intense I lost my footing and half-slid, half-fell down several stairs.

You have to get up, I told myself, while breathing as shallowly as possible in a futile attempt to appease the monster in my gut. You could die here. I had no idea how often maintenance workers entered this staircase, but it was unlikely they'd do it soon enough to save me. I considered shifting downwards step-by-step on my bottom, but it only took me one step to discover the jar when I landed was unbearable. Going down backwards on hands and knees was even worse.

You must stand. You're running out of time. I allowed myself to rest for five breaths, then hauled myself to my feet. The effort caused me to cry out loudly, but I didn't care. If the noise summoned someone, so much the better.

I forced myself to walk down the staircase with exaggerated care, holding tightly to the railing to prevent another fall. I finally reached the proper step and crumpled into a heap, willing the drop to open, and after an eternity, it did.

Chapter Text

January 2065

Linna took one look at me and rang for an ambulance. I didn't actually lose consciousness, but after mumbling something about my appendix, I lapsed into an extremely passive state. After spending myself to reach the drop, I was no longer interested in what was happening around me. My attention was tightly focused on the pain and on suppressing the urge to vomit. I was distantly aware of Kivrin running into the lab, braids flying behind her, while the med techs were evaluating me.

“You're next of kin?” one of them asked her.

“Step-sister,” she lied, panting heavily. She must have run all the way from wherever she'd been. I wondered how Linna had found her so quickly.

“We think he has a ruptured appendix. He's too ill to give meaningful consent to anything, and will likely need surgery right away. You should come with us.”

Ned rushed into the lab just as we were leaving. His gaze darted from me to Kivrin, who said, “Appendix. I'll call you from hospital.”

It was a good thing Kivrin came with me, as I wouldn't have been able to answer any questions. She took care of that, and I was quickly taken into surgery.

Waking after the surgery was a definite struggle. I didn't feel confused, as I had after the bicycle accident, but my body seemed slow and heavy. Kivrin was there, and wearing the same clothing as the last time I'd seen her, so perhaps it was the same day.

“You idiot,” she said, to welcome me back to the world. “Why didn't you come back to the drop sooner?”

“Couldn't get there,” I mumbled. “It didn't get bad until I was already on the train from Yorkshire.”

“Then you should have gone to a contemp hospital,” she scolded, and I heard the strain in her voice.

“It was that bad?” I asked.

She nodded mutely, close to tears.

“Don't tell Dunworthy, then,” I said.

“What?” she said in surprise, with a hint of alarm in her voice.

“Relax. I know he's not here,” I said slowly. “But aren't you keeping a list for him, of things to tell me off about when he gets home?”

She choked on a laugh. “You are impossible,” she said, as the tears spilled over. “I bloody well should. It would serve you right.”

“A retrieval team came for Michael,” I said, with some effort. “Either that, or spies for the War Office.”

“What?”

“Tell you later,” I said, and drifted off.

I was more coherent the next day. Kivrin came by as one of the nurses finished taking me for a walk.

“It's not so bad,” I said, seeing Kivrin's furrowed brow. “It's not so good, either,” I admitted, as I eased back into bed with a wince. “Kiv, we need to send someone back to clean the drop, or I'll do it myself when I'm better. I vomited on the staircase, and we don't want to draw attention to the fact that people have been in there.”

Kivrin smiled. “Ned's already taking care of it.” At my surprised look, she said, “You were probably in too much pain to notice, but there was sick on your clothes. Ned's taken two of Lady Schrapnell's new recruits along to do the cleaning. It's an excellent opportunity for them to learn that time travel has less glamorous aspects. It's also good for them to see that things can go badly wrong, even when you're not in a war zone.”

“How did you get to the lab so quickly?” I said, hoping to forestall a lecture. “And don't say you ran. How did Linna find you?”

“They always know where I am when you're on a drop,” she said, as if it were obvious.

“What?”

“On the days when you're away on assignment, I give Badri and Linna a copy of my schedule for the day, and stick to it,” she explained. “If there are any last-minute changes, I phone the lab.”

“And you've been doing this since my practicum?” I said in disbelief. I opened my mouth to complain about her overprotectiveness, then closed it again as I remembered how often Dunworthy had been waiting in the lab when Kivrin was due to return from a drop. I wondered if he'd given Badri his schedule when she was away.

“Yes,” she said. “They always have Ned's schedule, too, because of all the drops the retrieval team goes on.”

And I'd assumed Lady Schrapnell was the cause of the haggard expression I sometimes saw on Ned's face. It had never occurred to me how stressful it must be to constantly have historians out on assignment, especially after the closure and Andrew's death. And Dunworthy had done it for decades. No wonder he'd been so strict about the no-drops-'til-you're-twenty rule.

“Let me tell you what I learned,” I said, and told her about Daphne and Mavis and what they'd said to me.

“So we know Michael was alive and living in London in December of 1940, and was likely heading back to Kent,” she concluded, “but we don't know who Watson and Holmes were.”

“I was certain it was a retrieval team at first,” I said. “But after I'd spoken to Mavis, I realized that someone doing secret work for the War Office might also be concealing their identities. I'm just not sure why they would have been looking for Michael. He didn't take any tech with him, did he? Like the camera specs?”

“No,” Kivrin said. “None of the missing historians had anything obviously anachronistic on them, unless Dunworthy had something small in his pockets, which is unlikely. He's always been a bear about historians checking their bags and pockets before they go through. Apparently, he made a blunder like that when he was young and got out of a tight spot through sheer luck.”

“But they might have—”

“No,” she said. “We checked on that first thing, years ago, while you were still at Eton. So if someone was trying to find Michael because they suspected him of being a Nazi spy, it wasn't because of anything he'd taken with him. He might have said something careless, though.”

“What if they weren't trying to catch him?” I asked. “Assuming they were even from the War Office. What if they were trying to recruit him?”

“Why?” she said. “Michael's certainly clever enough, but how would he have attracted their attention?”

I shrugged. “Well, Commander Harold was clearly doing secret work, and he knew Michael. Perhaps he said something to someone.”

“Perhaps,” she said uncertainly.

“I think the next course of action is to find out what I can about Commander Harold's war work. Hopefully, I'll run across something about Michael, too.”

“Your next course of action is getting better,” she said, “and after that, you've got the conference.”

“What?” I said blankly.

“You were planning on coming with us, I presume? Harris has already taken care of your registration and booked a room.”

“No one's said anything to me about it,” I told her. Every March, temporal theorists and practical historians from around the world hold a time travel conference. This year, London was the host city. “You didn't want me there when it was in Paris.”

“You were eighteen then,” she said.

“And?” I said, feeling slightly affronted. “It's not like I was in nappies.”

“Colin, have you looked at yourself lately? Not just now, I mean, when you're obviously ill, but in general?”

“I look the same as ever.”

“No, you don't,” she said. “You're a bit taller, somewhat heavier, and much more muscled. The bones in your face are more prominent. Basically, you look like a man. When you were eighteen, you still looked like a boy.”

“I still don't see—” I began.

“You have a degree now, and a job,” she continued. “The conference attendees will see you as young, but a colleague. Four years ago, you would have been dismissed as a student.”

“You didn't want me there because you thought I'd make a poor first impression?” I said incredulously.

“Yes,” she said. “That's why Ned and Badri and TJ have been dealing with the temporal theorists instead of you. There was no need for you to be there four years ago. This year... well, apparently Ned hasn't had a chance to tell you yet, but one of the afternoon sessions will be devoted to discussing the closure and our missing historians.”

“What?”

“He's been trying to set it up for ages, and only got the approval of the conference committee a few days ago. TJ's going to do a presentation on the latest maps and there will doubtless be questions about what we've come up with so far in terms of locating the historians. As the primary researcher, we assumed you'd want to be there.”

“Why am I always the last one to hear about these things?” I complained.

“Because life goes on in Oxford while you're pub-crawling your way through the 1960s. If we waited for you to come home to seek your opinion, we'd never get anything done.”

I fell silent, thinking about how many days in the past year I'd spent on assignment. At one point, I'd bumped up against the drop limit and had impatiently counted down the days until I could go again.

“There's no need for you to get time lag,” Ned had told me, when I chafed at the travel restrictions. “I've done it, and it's a lot more fun to watch than to experience. Although it wasn't a bad way to get a wife.”

“I'm trying to get a wife, thanks very much, which is why I need to go on this drop,” I'd said crossly, but Ned had been adamant.

Giving myself a mental shake, I looked at Kivrin and said, “You weren't trying to keep me out of the loop?”

“Yes, Colin, we think you're incapable of crossing the street by yourself. That's why we let you run off to the past, unsupervised, on a regular basis. You can take this up with Ned if you like, but if you didn't bother mentioning the conference to him why should he have discussed it with you? How often do you speak to him, anyway?”

“Not very often,” I admitted, and realized how much time I spent alone with my own research. “I should have thought of the conference on my own, and seen it as an opportunity to discuss my research. That was rather stupid of me.”

“Tunnel vision is a common failing among researchers,” she said.

“That's what I need you for,” I said. “To keep track of the big picture.”

“The big picture,” she agreed, “and a list for Dunworthy.”

March 2065

By March, I'd long since left hospital but had limited energy. I stayed in Oxford for a change, reviewing the facts we'd acquired over the years and the inferences we'd drawn from them. I thought it likely our conclusions would be scrutinized by other historians and I wanted to be able to defend them without stumbling.

I'd tried doing searches on Commander Harold in Oxford, but nothing had turned up. I wondered if there might be some mention of him buried in military intelligence documents, but most of those records had been destroyed by a pinpoint during the rash of terrorism that had claimed St. Paul's. I'd have to go on assignment to read them in person.

Because London was hosting the conference this year, we took a larger-than-usual contingent of historians from Oxford. A few of our undergraduates even came to London for some of the sessions, although they seemed rather overwhelmed by it all.

Most of the conference was uneventful. Thanks to the years I’d spent studying temporal theory, I could understand many of the technical talks. Kivrin, Ned, Badri, and TJ had attended the conference before, and during the breaks they introduced me to several people whose work I’d read. I was surprised by how many of them had heard of me.

“Dunworthy’s stowaway,” Ishiwaka said, as soon as Ned introduced us. “Ned tells me you’ve been working on retrieving Dunworthy and the others.”

“I saved him once before,” I said.

“So you did,” he said, smiling, “and perhaps you will again. You don’t seem the sort to give up easily. I’m looking forward to this afternoon’s session. I understand Lewis has some new data.”

Ishiwaka was buttonholed by another historian before I could form an answer. He nodded to me genially while being led away and I stood there, feeling surprised. For years, I’d seen his temporal theory as my personal nemesis. I’d imagined him an enemy, too, but I could see now that he was merely an academic with a different theory.

Ned chaired our afternoon session. I'd expected the room to be half-empty, given the number of other sessions taking place at the same time, but every seat had been taken and there were a dozen people standing in the back of the room. After introducing the panel, Ned gave a brief summary of what had happened in April 2060 and then handed things over to TJ and Badri.

“Those of you familiar with our earlier work on the closure are already acquainted with the process we use to construct a temporal map,” Badri said. “For the last two years, we've been compiling and analyzing old slippage records and using them to create a series of temporal maps from the beginning of time travel to the present. I'd like to thank all of the Time Travel departments around the world who've shared their data with us and made the mapping possible.

“The first thing we learned from creating historical temporal maps is that the point of reference is significant,” Badri said, which caused a bit of a stir in the audience. “Yes, I realize the temporal maps we've been doing since 2060 haven't changed much, but that's not been true throughout the history of time travel.”

“Haven't changed much? They haven't changed at all,” said an American I didn't recognize.

“Actually, that's not quite true,” TJ said. “Let me show you.”

He brought up a series of images on the display wall. “These are inverse temporal maps. We've only had them for about six months or so and haven't published anything about them yet. Basically, if you think of a temporal map as something that shows you where you can go, the inverse map shows you where you can't, but it also gives a rough indication of how impossible it is to get there.

“This one here,” he said, pointing to a near-blinding blob of white surrounded by different shades of grey, “is an inverse map of the Battle of Waterloo. The intense white color indicates a massive obstruction, an extremely thick wall, if you will.

“This,” he said, pointing to the next image, “is an inverse map based on data taken just after the closure. As you can see, the white areas here and here show the new closures. But here,” he said, pointing to the next image, “the whiteness is slightly less intense. This map was done using January 2062 as a reference point. This one,” he said, pointing at yet another image, “is markedly less bright than its predecessors. It was projected from January of 2064. The closure is still there, but it's thinning. Our most recent maps, done just last week, show a continuation of that trend.”

“If that sort of mapping has any validity,” said a woman I didn't recognize.

“We'd be happy to discuss how the mapping is done at the end of the session,” Ned interjected smoothly. “We also have some new conclusions based on conventional temporal maps, which have been widely accepted as meaningful.”

“Yes,” said Badri. “Getting back to my original point, the temporal maps do shift with time. These first ones,” he said, bringing up a new series of images, “are from the earliest years of Time Travel. They're the ones most likely to have inaccuracies, as most of the data was taken before the use of Pulhaski coordinates. This first map shows the classical closures, around things like Waterloo and Hitler and the Kennedy assassinations. The reference point for this map was taken before the advent of slippage.

“All the rest of these maps were done after slippage became an integral part of drops. As you can see, there are minor fluctuations here and there in the map, but nothing major until we get to 2057.”

“The Kindle Incident,” said a student in the third row, who promptly looked embarrassed at having been caught thinking out loud.

“Yes,” Badri said. “We experienced abnormal slippage, destination malfunction, and the net failing to open altogether. Mappings of the Kindle Incident correspond closely to a Waterloo sim involving a self-correction reaching into the past. Although we believed the Kindle Incident was an incongruity at first, we now believe it's actually a self-correction of an incongruity that will take place six hundred years from now. What's interesting to note is that nowhere on any of these maps before or after the Kindle Incident is there any indication of the incongruities that were part of it. We only see incongruities when the self-correction is already taking place.”

“But what does this have to do with the inverse temporal maps?” Ishiwaka asked.

“Ordinary temporal maps give us no warning of incongruities,” TJ replied. “It's rather like falling into a deep hole, and the self-corrections are a ladder one can use to climb out again. If you look at the inverse map for the Kindle Incident, though,” he said, bringing up a new series of images, “you see the temporary failure of the net, and the time period around it when things were getting worse, then better.”

TJ pointed to a small but intense white blip with grey edges. “As you can see, just before the Kindle Incident, the map changes from black to dark grey to light grey. Inverse maps show us where the holes are. This,” he said, “is the inverse map from March 2060. You'll notice that the closures aren't there yet, but the areas where the closures will be are already light grey.”

“Supposing these are accurate,” said a man standing in the back of the room, “how does that help us prevent closures?”

“It doesn't,” TJ said. “All it can do is tell us that things about about to get worse. Or, in the case of the map from January 2064, that things are gradually getting better.”

“What implications do you think this has for Ishiwaka's theory?” asked a woman in the front row.

“We're not certain yet,” Ned said, “but we believe the improvement in the inverse map is a strong hint that the post-1995 and World War II closures are not permanent.”

“What do you think about this?” she said, turning round to look at Ishiwaka.

“I'd like to review the equations,” said Ishiwaka. “As I've said before, it could be that the continuum will somehow repair itself and World War II will open again eventually, but I'm afraid the historians will be dead long before then, as well as the contemps they interacted with.”

“No, sir,” I said quietly. Ishiwaka seemed mildly surprised, and most of the attendees looked at me with varying degrees of outrage and fascination. Perhaps they thought I was about to make a scene. “According to your calculations, the historians would have died in less than a week. Isn't that so?”

“Yes,” he said. “At the outside, I would expect such a self-correction to happen within a month. Regrettable, I admit, but that's what the equations suggest.”

“Michael Davies' assignment was Dunkirk, sir,” I said. “Late May of 1940. I've personally spoken to two contemps who saw him months later.”

“Perhaps there was excessive slippage and he arrived much later than you believe,” Ishiwaka suggested.

“No, sir. Both of the people I spoke to saw him near Dover in May. The man I spoke to saw Davies again in September, and the woman saw him in late December.”

“Could it be a case of mistaken identity?” someone asked.

“No,” I said. “The man they saw spent time in the military hospital in Orpington. Just before he was discharged, the Assistance Board filed an application for a replacement passport using Michael's contemp name, Mike Davis. The application stated that Davis was a war correspondent for the Omaha Observer, Michael's cover story, and the name of his editor was given as James Dunworthy.”

The room had gone utterly silent. “I... may have miscalculated,” Ishiwaka said. “Or failed to account for some unknown factor. Tell me what else you've learned.”

“The last thing I know about Michael is that in December of 1940 he was living in London, possibly Kensington. He received the address of two men who'd been searching for him and likely went off to meet them somewhere in Kent near Hawkhurst. My contemp witness told me the men were young, dressed in expensive civilian clothing, and had posh accents. They told her their names were Watson and Holmes.”

“A retrieval team?” someone said.

“Possibly,” I said. “Although we know that the man who captained the boat Michael went to Dunkirk on later did classified work for the War Office. Watson and Holmes may have been intelligence officers.”

“Hang on, Davies actually went to Dunkirk?” said someone in the back. “I thought he was just supposed to interview survivors once they got back to Dover.”

“That was the plan, yes, but he went to Dunkirk on a boat called the Lady Jane,” I answered. “He was badly injured while unclogging debris from the propeller and nearly lost a foot.” I glanced briefly at Ned, who nodded his permission. “One of my contemp witnesses was a private named David Hardy who was on the Lady Jane and reckons he owes his life to Michael. Hardy went back to Dunkirk and helped rescue five hundred other soldiers.”

There was a collective gasp, and someone said, “There's your incongruity. I always thought it was the mystery Wren.”

“Lt. Wendy Armitage,” I supplied. “One of Dilly's girls. I spoke to her briefly in 1965, after interviewing her husband... David Hardy.”

Ishiwaka looked at me and said, “I'm beginning to understand why Dunworthy said you were irrepressible.”

“What about the others?” someone asked. “What have you learned?”

“About Mr. Dunworthy and Polly? Nothing,” I said. I turned to Ned and said, “They know about the messages?”

“ ‘Time knoweth no bounds’?” said the woman in the front row, as Ned nodded at me. “We know that bit. But haven't you also found a death notice for Davies?”

“There was a death notice for a Mike Davis in January of 1941, but I haven't been able to establish whether that was Michael, or whether a body was even found,” I said. “During the Blitz, there were many unidentified and misidentified bodies. Some people were mistakenly reported as dead by friends or relatives who assumed they'd been in destroyed buildings when the bombs fell. Even if that was our Michael, he survived for several months and Hardy survived for decades, which is contrary to what one would expect from Ishiwaka's theory.

“As for Merope Ward,” I said, moving on quickly, “the only thing I know about her is that the manor where she was taking care of evacuees was quarantined during a measles outbreak, causing her to miss her rendezvous. Shortly after that, the manor was converted into a riflery school, rendering her drop inaccessible for the remainder of the war. She was likely still there at the time, taking care of the last evacuees, two hellions named Alf and Binnie Hodbin. I believe the Hodbins went back to their mother in Whitechapel and likely died with her, sometime during the Blitz. I don't know where Merope went.”

Someone asked how the inverse maps were created, and Badri and TJ gave a brief presentation, followed by several technical questions. I sat back, quietly rejoicing at how smoothly everything had gone. TJ and Badri had been concerned that the inverse maps would be met with skepticism, and I'd worried that my youth might impair my credibility. It was the information I'd gathered on my last drop that had done it, I thought. Proving Michael had been alive months after Dunkirk had taken everyone by surprise. Disproving Ishiwaka's conclusions on that one point had made the audience more receptive to all the other things we'd told them. It was a shame Kivrin had missed it, but she'd been scheduled to chair a session for medievalists at the same time.

Ishiwaka came up to me after our session ended. “Good presentation,” he said. “Most thought-provoking. I can see I need to re-evaluate my conclusions. Are you doing graduate work now?”

“Not just yet, sir,” I said. “I'm waiting for my tutor to come home.”

April 2065

The impact of our conference session rippled outward for weeks. A large group of us had gone out for dinner immediately after the session to continue discussing the closure. I was pelted with questions about exactly what we'd discovered and how we'd learned it, while Badri and TJ were turned inside out by queries about the inverse maps. Ishiwaka had suggested the restaurant and I gathered he was a regular customer, because the waitstaff didn't even seem surprised when he and two other temporal theorists began scrawling equations on the tablecloth.

I'd been expecting to go on assignment again immediately after the conference, but was continually delayed by inquiries from historians who hadn't been at our session but had heard of it and wanted more information. I'd also gone to several follow-up meetings with various temporal theorists who were revising their ideas in the wake of our revelations. They'd been surprised that I had a better-than-rudimentary understanding of temporal theory, and I'd been surprised that they were far more communicative and helpful than Cummings, our resident theorist. Ned and I still approached her on occasion, but she was perpetually wrapped up in abstract speculations of her own. As near as I could tell, she was fixated on discovering a unified temporal theory.

By April, the activity generated by the conference had subsided enough for me to consider leaving Oxford again. I wanted to learn more about Commander Harold's work after Dunkirk and rule out the possibility that Michael had been doing intelligence work.

“I'm thinking of going to 1976 this time,” I said, during a meeting of the retrieval team.

“Why 1976? Why not 1985 again?” Ned asked.

“There's a rather nosy man who keeps turning up in reading rooms in 1985,” I said. “This is likely to be a months-long drop and I'd like to do it somewhere I'm not already known. 1976 is the earliest I could go and review a lot of declassified military intelligence documents. I'd rather not go to the 1990s because I may need those days later for fiftieth anniversary events.”

“Couldn't you go back and forth on short trips?” Kivrin asked.

“I can't go there on a daily basis without getting time lag,” I said.

“What about a weekly drop?” Finch suggested. “The archives may not be open on the weekends, anyway. You could do your weeks in 1976 and the weekends here. That would keep you on something of a normal schedule.”

“Or I could come here to report in, spend the night, and go back next morning to the following Monday,” I said.

“That's too much,” Kivrin told me. “You do need some rest, and it's rather isolating for you to be among strangers all the time. You need to spend some time here if you're going to be on assignment that long.”

“I am capable—” I began.

“Of finding the historians,” Ned said. “If you pace yourself. You are not skilled at acknowledging your physical limits, or am I only imagining cleaning your sick off a staircase you nearly died on? You heard the other historians the night we went to dinner after the session. You are not the only overeager researcher who sometimes neglects his basic needs.”

I recalled the conversation he was referring to. Kivrin had mentioned in passing that I had a tendency to skip food and sleep when I was engaged in research, and several of the people at the table had chimed in with their own stories of being work-obsessed.

“So you want me back in Oxford once a week to be sure I'm eating and sleeping?” I said, with some irritation.

“Yes,” Ned said. “You will not succeed if you drive yourself into the ground first. If I let you sacrifice yourself for the missing historians, I could lose all five of you. You need to accept that you're not good at remembering to look after yourself, Colin, and trust us to do that for you, just as some historians rely on their secretaries or spouses.”

I reluctantly agreed to spend the weekends in Oxford.

Kivrin, looking pleased, said, “There's something we should tell you. Ned?”

“We've been looking at the inverse maps again,” Ned said.

“Is there something wrong with them?” I asked, with some alarm.

“No,” Finch said. “The maps we used at the conference were only a handful of the ones we have. Following my instructions, Linna's spent the last several months working on inverse maps. She's generated inverse maps on a monthly basis for the last five years. Any time she found a change in the mapping, she went back and created new maps on a finer time scale, to determine exactly when things were changing.”

“And?” I said. Finch was wearing his best butler's face, but I could still tell he was pleased about something.

“The shifts seem to correspond directly to discoveries we've made about our missing historians.”

“So every time we gain some piece of information...” I said.

“The closure shrinks a little,” Kivrin said. “These days, that's nearly every time you go on a drop.”

“This is why you want me home every week, isn't it?” I said. “You knew I'd been excited, and you're trying to keep me from going on an all-out sprint to find the historians.”

“Yes,” Ned said. “You'll come home every Friday, to rest and report in. If you're doing well, you'll go back on Monday morning. If not, you'll stay in Oxford 'til you're rested up again. It's what I do for my other historians, whenever circumstances permit.”

I began to say that Dunworthy hadn't been such a fussbudget, then I remembered all the time I'd spent looking up air raids and how restrictive he'd been about where Polly could look for lodgings. “Very well,” I said. “I'll begin next week.”

March 1976

I spent the first two days of my drop looking for lodgings. I'd considered using a hostel again, and possibly even working part-time in one, but Ned's come-home-every-Friday dictate had changed my mind. I'd opted instead to look for a bedsit within walking distance of an Underground station. I hadn't planned on being fussy about my accommodations, but did need to find a place where I could get a decent night's sleep. Half the places I saw contained beds that were too short for me, and many of the others were either squalid or located in extremely noisy areas. I'd rejected one possibility out of hand due to an overly inquisitive neighbor. I wanted to be as anonymous as possible, and the last thing I needed was a neighbor wondering why I was never home at the weekends.

I finally located a suitable bedsit on the Northern Line. The newspaper library I'd visited in the 1960s was now considered part of the British Library rather than the British Museum, but little else had changed. The heating was still unreliable, and the microfilm readers were new but inhabited by the same poltergeists which had vexed the equipment in 1960.

I began by wading through documents from the time period around Dunkirk, thinking that the Lady Jane must have been diverted on one of her trips to Dunkirk or Commander Harold and Jonathan would have returned to Saltram-on-Sea. It would have been lovely to find a separate folder of documents related to Dunkirk, or at least an index of such papers, but of course I had no such luck. With a sigh, I turned to the mountain of memoranda that had been written in May and June.

I found my first clue on Friday afternoon, in a brief memo that had been written on the fourth of June. “Recommend long-term retention of two field recruits, Captain Doolittle and First Mate Alfred of the Mlle. Jeannette. Since retrieving valuable property from Ostende, they have undertaken three other commissions and performed with distinction. The Mlle. Jeannette and her crew are desirably inconspicuous and likely to prove useful in future endeavors.” The memo had been stamped “Approved.” Mlle. Jeannette. I'd found the Lady Jane.

April 2065

I was practically skipping when I came through in Oxford. I wasn't even put out to see Ned and Kivrin waiting for me. I briefly told them about the Mlle. Jeannette, then Kivrin took me away to join the retrieval team for dinner.

“Aren't you coming with us?” I asked Ned, as we were leaving the lab.

“I'm waiting for another historian to come through,” he said. “This is Phoebe's first solo drop as a housemaid.”

“A housemaid?” I asked.

Ned nodded. “Retrieving kittens. Finch went with her last time, but she's still unaccustomed to being in service. I'd like to be sure everything came off all right.”

Kivrin tugged at me. “Come along, we're supposed to be doing the cooking. See you in an hour or so,” she called out to Ned as we left.

“We're at your place tonight?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Ned and Verity's,” she said, “but Verity's exhausted, so I volunteered us in the kitchen.”

Finch was already there, and had captivated James. I wondered how he did it, as some afternoons with James had made me question the wisdom of parenthood.

“Will Ian be joining us?” I asked, while cutting up vegetables. He'd occasionally come to dinner with us, although he wasn't engaged in the retrieval effort.

Kivrin's face suddenly lost its cheerfulness. “No.”

“Oh, Kiv,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be,” she said. “Apparently, I'm too committed to my work. Not just the retrieval effort, but my primary research, as well.”

“He didn't seem to think that before the conference, where every third person knew you.”

“Colin! That's not very kind,” she said.

“But it is very true,” Verity said, coming into the kitchen. “What did he expect? You've been to the Black Death. He's never going to top that, and shouldn't need to.”

“I suppose so,” she said, and they went on to catch me up on the week's gossip.

Ned arrived just as we were putting the food on the table. “All's well, and we have four new kittens.” He turned to me while taking a chair and said, “Tell us all about your week.” I did, and for the first time found myself not resenting the come-home-every-Friday restriction. Even a single week of my solitary bedsit/reading room existence had made me grateful to return to Oxford.

September 1976

I quickly adjusted to my there-and-back routine. I kept plodding through documents, looking for further mentions of Captain Doolittle and any hints of Michael's existence. Many of the other readers were only there a few days, but I began to notice a few regulars: a middle-aged man in wire-rimmed spectacles whose demeanor shouted “academic” to me, a few rushed-looking younger men who might have been journalists checking something for an article, and a pretty young woman my age who smiled at me whenever she passed.

By my third week in 1976, I noticed that she sat next to me whenever she could. One day, she introduced herself to me as Ann Perry and asked what I was researching.

“Connor Cross,” I said, shaking her hand. “I'm looking for information about a man named Commander Harold who was recruited by British Intelligence after Dunkirk. I know he sometimes rescued downed pilots, but I'm trying to find out what else he did during the war. What about you?”

“I'm reading British Intelligence papers as well,” she said. “I'm looking through the documents about Fortitude South. Specifically, I'm researching the false articles they put in the newspapers to convince Hitler the invasion was going to be at Calais.”

I'd once told Polly that I planned to be devastatingly handsome and charming by the time I was twenty-five. Judging by Ann's interest in me, I was well on my way to meeting that goal. And I came to 1976 to get away from inquisitive people, I thought ruefully.

As the months passed, I continued unearthing details of Commander Harold's service. Ann and I usually sat together and she occasionally smuggled in a sandwich or a cup of tea on the days I worked through lunch, which was most of them. I'd taken to eating enormous breakfasts and dinners to keep my weight up. I'd already been grounded to Oxford twice for returning home overtired and underweight and didn't want to lose any more research time if I could help it. I'd hoped to find a memo from December 1940 or January 1941 recommending Michael's recruitment, but I'd had no luck with that. Periodic mentions of Captain Doolittle told me that he'd been busy throughout 1941 and 1942 delivering supplies to the Resistance and smuggling people out of Europe.

To keep myself fresh, I'd begun switching between the declassified documents and old newspapers from the fall of 1940. I'd reviewed most of the larger papers while I was still an undergraduate, but there had been multiple newspapers in the London area during the war. I now knew that Michael had been in London by December 1940. Likely he'd gone there shortly after leaving Orpington in September. Polly and Dunworthy had both gone through in September 1940, and Eileen had probably left Backbury in the same month. What if they'd all found one another?

It was on one of my newspaper days that I found a death notice for an unidentified man who'd been killed by an HE near St. Paul's on September tenth, the day Mr. Dunworthy had gone through to retrieve Polly.

He hadn't made it to Polly. He hadn't even made it to the Underground station. He had changed my life utterly and I hadn't been able to save him.

“Connor?” Ann said tentatively. “Connor, what's the matter?”

I quickly switched off the screen I'd been staring at for who knows how long. Mourn later, I told myself. You need to come up with an explanation for your reaction, and quickly.

“It's an article about a child,” I stammered. “Killed by an HE. They never found his head.”

She looked skeptical. “It's more than that. You've gone nearly white.”

“It was my uncle,” I admitted, with seeming reluctance. “My dad's brother. They were very close and my dad still grieves for him. I hadn't realized his death was so gruesome.”

It wasn't the best of lies, but she believed it, and insisted I come out with her for a meal and a stiff drink. “Clearly, you've had a bad shock. Best thing for it, really,” she said.

I wasn't sure I agreed with her, but I went with her, anyway, to a pub not far from the library. She ordered for both of us, including a large brandy for me. I answered her whenever she spoke, but her worried frown indicated that I wasn't paying attention properly. Small wonder, as the only thing I could truly hear were my own thoughts. Dunworthy's dead. You failed him. Dunworthy's dead, and Michael's dead, and Polly... I rushed to the loo and promptly sicked up the brandy and food I'd just had.

Ann followed me, and held my head while making soothing noises. “Let me see you home,” she suggested.

“No,” I said, “I'll be all right.” I didn't want her to end up in my bed, and it would be easier to turn her down here than in my bedsit. If I hadn't been in love with Polly, I might have chosen differently. If you weren't in love with Polly, you wouldn't be here, I thought. No, you would have come anyway, for Dunworthy's sake. I nearly sicked up again, just at the thought of his name.

I squashed those feelings down for the moment, composed myself, paid the bill, and thanked Ann for her concern. She regarded me doubtfully as I left. Apparently, I hadn't been as successful as I'd thought in convincing her I felt much recovered.

It was Thursday. Did I want to go home a day early? No, the bad news could wait.

I collapsed on the bed as soon as I reached my bedsit, and lay there in misery, aching for Polly and for the loss of the only father I'd ever known.

Things looked slightly less bleak the next morning. Why had I been so bloody quick to assume the unidentified man was Dunworthy? There would have been dozens, if not hundreds, of men passing the site where the bomb fell on the tenth of September and I didn't even know when it had hit. “Unidentified” didn't have to mean Mr. Dunworthy, as I'd handed him an identity card myself. It could have been anyone—or pieces of anyone—that they'd found in the rubble.

You assumed it was Dunworthy because that's what you fear, I thought. I imagined the lecture Dunworthy would have given me on theorizing ahead of the facts, and that mental image was enough to get me out of bed to ready myself for another day of research.

Ann was clearly looking for my arrival in the reading room. Someone had taken my usual seat next to her, but she came over to chat as soon as I'd found a place.

“Are you all right?” she asked, looking worried.

I wondered if she were getting too attached to me and whether it would be wiser to shift to a different era, but she'd been a good friend and I liked her. “Much better. Thanks again for being so supportive yesterday.”

She looked as if she wanted to say more, but thought better of it. She was a clever girl, and likely realized I was fond of her but not in the way she hoped.

I spent the morning scouring all of the London papers to see if I could find out something else about the unidentified man. If, for example, he'd been wearing a uniform, or described as young, or had different coloring than Mr. Dunworthy, I could set my mind at ease. I found nothing useful. It's not him. He's not dead, I firmly told myself, but I dreaded taking the news back to Oxford.

October 2065

“You're looking peaky,” Kivrin said, when I visited her that evening. Ned was in France on business, so I'd been spared the task of reporting in right away. I hadn't decided yet whether I should share what I'd found or spend another week digging for more information.

“Had a bit too much to drink the other night,” I said.

“Oh?” she said. “That's not like you. Spill it.”

So I told her about the death notice I'd seen and how badly I'd taken it. “And don't tell me this is why I need to come home. I've already worked out for myself that it was an overreaction and that I probably wouldn't have become so upset if I'd seen the notice while I was here. Not having anyone in 1976 to theorize with is a definite drawback.”

“I could come with you on occasion, if you like,” she offered.

“Kiv, you have students to tutor and field research of your own to take care of. You're probably already spending too much time on document research.” It was true. Most of the retrieval team spent their odd moments wading through diaries and letters I'd identified as being of possible use. By now, Kivrin probably knew more about Lady Denewell's servants than Lady Denewell had.

“Still...” she said.

“I'll be all right,” I said. “It was just a nasty shock.”

I reported my findings to Ned the next day. He didn't seem any more concerned about the death notice than Kivrin had, which I found reassuring. “Put it down on Dunworthy's board as a possible, but the evidence isn't strong enough to make me believe it's him.” I nodded without telling him how grateful I was for his assessment. I'd feared that my personal feelings for Dunworthy were clouding my judgment.

November 1976

I returned to work with renewed confidence, but little success. By November of 1976, I'd worked my way through 1943 without learning anything new about Commander Harold and was ready for a change. I went back to the newspapers, looking for any hint of our missing historians in the Daily Express and was promptly kicked in the teeth.

“Polly Sebastian, 25. Died suddenly. St. George’s, Kensington,” the notice read.

I felt as if all the breath had been sucked out of my body. It couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t. I flipped through the newspaper, looking for other references to St. George’s, but found nothing. After the previous drama over the man I'd feared was Mr. Dunworthy, I schooled myself to patience, but abandoned my plans for finishing 1940 in the Daily Express in favor of checking all the papers for news of the bombing at St. George's. I spent the rest of that day and most of the next going through newspapers. I found a paragraph titled “Kensington Church Damaged by Bombing” in another paper, but the church wasn’t identified. How many churches had been damaged in Kensington during the Blitz?

St. George's was near the drop Badri had found for Polly, but why would she have been there during an air raid? She should have been in an Underground station. I re-checked the list of names of people who'd perished during the Blitz for a Polly Sebastian. It wasn't there. Was the article in error or was it the list?

I was firmly telling myself that the death notice was a mistake when Ann nudged me to show me an article she'd found.

“Look at this one,” she said. “It's from May of 1944. I could swear I've seen the name Polly used many times before. Do you suppose whoever wrote this actually knew these people or were they just making up names?”

I took the paper from her and read, “Mr. and Mrs. James Townsend of Upper Notting announce the engagement of their daughter Polly to Flight Officer Colin Templer of the 21st Airborne Division, currently stationed in Kent. A late June wedding is planned.”

“I think they were real people,” I said.

Chapter Text

January 2066

That Friday, in Dunworthy's rooms, I read the wedding announcement aloud to the retrieval team.

“It's Michael,” Ned said in wonder, while I was taping the announcement to Polly's blackboard. We'd already discussed Polly's death notice and categorized it as troubling but inconclusive.

“Most likely,” Finch said. “Commander Harold might have recommended him to British Intelligence. If Watson and Holmes had been a retrieval team, Michael would have left long before 1944.”

“It's more likely to be Michael than Merope, and 1944 is past Polly's and Dunworthy's deadlines,” Badri said. “Have you been able to locate him?”

“No,” I said. “This isn't something I found myself. One of the other readers showed it to me two days ago.”

“Ann,” Kivrin said immediately.

“The one with a crush on you?” Ned asked.

I winced. “Yes, and that's rather my problem. She knows what I'm supposed to be researching and it isn't articles composed by Fortitude South. She'll be suspicious if I suddenly change my focus.”

“Either that, or she'll think you're flirting with her,” Badri said.

“She's not that bad,” I said, although I privately feared he was correct. “But I'm thinking I should tackle Fortitude South from a different era. The question is when.”

“You look all in,” Kivrin said. “Why don't you take a week off from the reading rooms and stay here in Oxford? You can use the time to research Ann's life. If, for example, you know she wasn't using the reading room in 1977, you could go then.”

“Actually, I got a call this afternoon from Ishiwaka,” Ned said. “He'd like us to come up to London for a meeting, to discuss his modified theory and our latest inverse maps. He specifically asked for you, Badri, and TJ to join me.”

“When does he want us?” I asked.

“He suggested Tuesday or Wednesday of next week,” Ned said. “Why don't you rest up and review what you'd like to cover, and I'll have one of my historians look up this Ann. You can plan your next drop once you know which years are available. You can go back to 1976 for a week or so, and pretend to finish your research on Commander Harold, whether or not you're actually done. If you disappear without warning, she's more likely to wonder about what happened and remember you, which would be awkward if you bump into her in 1977.”

I thought it likely that Ann would remember me for some time, no matter what I did, but his suggestion made sense.

Kivrin came up to me as the meeting was breaking up. “Well done,” she said. “This is very promising.”

“I didn't do anything,” I protested. “I've spent months following the wrong path, while someone else did the research I should have been doing.”

“You would have got to those articles eventually,” she said. “We've been focused on the Blitz because of Mr. Dunworthy, but what would you have done after finishing the newspapers and your search for Commander Harold?”

“I would have moved on to Fortitude South,” I admitted. “Why is this is all so slow?”

“Because it's research,” she said. “Ned will tell you it's for some sort of Grand Design reason, and perhaps he's right, but research can be ridiculously hard without any outside help from Fate or whatever you want to call it.”

After everyone had gone, I thought about what Kivrin had said. I'd lain awake more nights than I'd ever admit to her, wondering whether Ned was right, and what a Grand Design reason for the closure might be. When I was seventeen, I'd told myself the closure existed to give me a chance to catch up to Polly in age, but I hadn't truly believed it, even then. Did it have something to do with the post-1995 closure? I'd wondered that once before years ago... and had promptly got my brain scrambled by a concussion.

As ever, my thoughts about the closure went round in circles without throwing out any useful suggestions. I fell asleep wondering how much Ann's discovery of the wedding announcement would change the inverse map.

I was woken by a loud crash coming from the sitting room, followed by swearing and giggling. It took me a few moments to remember where and when I was. Out of habit, I reached for my camera specs, then went to see what was going on.

I switched on a light, surprising the young man and woman in my sitting room. They'd crashed into one of the blackboards and knocked it over.

“What are you doing here?” I said groggily.

“What are we doing here? What are you doing here?” the man said.

“I live here,” I said in annoyance.

“This is not Paris in 1792. Why isn't this Paris?” the woman complained fretfully. Both of them looked like undergraduates, and they were clearly intoxicated. They seemed vaguely familiar, but I'd been away on assignment so often that I didn't know all of the student historians by sight.

She stared at me, and I realized I was standing there in my pants. “Why should this be Paris?” I asked, then said, “You were using the net?”

“Yes,” the man admitted.

“For a date?” I guessed.

“For a lark, really,” he said. “Why not?”

I could feel a headache beginning. “You should go to your lodgings. If you're wise, you'll explain this to Finch and your tutors in the morning before I have a chance to speak to them. In addition to whatever action they choose to take, I expect an essay from you,” I said, pointing to the woman, “about Roger Asquith, and from you,” I said pointing to the man, “about Andrew Pearson. I'll give you a hint: both of them combined irresponsible behavior with time travel and the results were unappetizing. Tell me your names.”

“We're in Oxford?” the woman said, looking dazed. I hoped she had more intelligence when she was sober. If not, she'd never take a degree, assuming Finch didn't insist on sending her down for this stunt.

“Yes,” I said. “You're in Balliol. These are Mr. Dunworthy's rooms.”

From their reaction, they'd obviously heard of Dunworthy. They cleared off in a hurry after that, and I righted the blackboard and went back to bed.

The next day, I hunted up Finch. “Have you spoken to two undergraduates this morning?”

“Renquist and Hazelton?” he asked. “I'll see that they're dealt with. They haven't come round, but Badri showed me the vid.”

“The what?”

“We've got some vidders set up in the lab, in case something goes wrong,” Finch said. “You may not have noticed.”

“But why did they end up in my sitting room?”

“Because it's Dunworthy's sitting room,” Finch said. “The techs lock the lab when they leave it, of course, but there's an extra security precaution: Every tech signs into the console with a personal access code. Anyone who tries to use the net for a manned drop without an access code—”

“Lands in Dunworthy's sitting room instead of traveling through time?” I guessed. “How long has this been going on?”

Finch smiled at me. “About ten years.”

Because of me. I'd considered breaking into the lab to sneak off to the Crusades, more than once. I was suddenly quite glad I'd never scraped up the nerve to do it. The idea of facing Dunworthy's wrath in the middle of the night made me shudder, even now.

He'd taken me aside, a few days after returning from 1349, and explained to me just how dangerous jumping into the net with him had been. At first, I'd thought he was exaggerating about losing a leg if part of me had been outside the net when it opened, but then he'd told me about Roger Asquith. Dunworthy had picked up the book he'd given me for Christmas and said, “the illustrations in here of people being beheaded... they're only simple drawings, and you don't know these people. It's not the same as seeing someone you've known, someone you've taught, with half their body missing...” His voice had trailed off at the memory of that sight. I'd been horrified, not by the mental picture but by the pain in his eyes, and had spontaneously promised to never ever jump in the net again. And yet, I realized, I'd thought about doing it, the day he'd gone to rescue Polly. No wonder Dunworthy had sent me to fetch a blackout torch.

We traveled down to London on the following Wednesday. I'd lost track of how many temporal theorists I'd spoken to since the conference, both in person and over the phone. None of them could explain why the closure had happened or when it might end, although all of them admitted that the situation seemed to be improving.

I'd been afraid that Ishiwaka had come up with some way to prove we'd never get the historians back alive, but that wasn't it at all. He showed us his revised equations and said that he now believed the historians might have survived as long as a year, so we had a larger retrieval window than we'd previously thought.

“Er...” Ned said.

“This is not encouraging news?” Ishiwaka asked.

“I've found a strong indication that Michael Davies was still alive and trapped inside the closure in May 1944,” I said, and told him about the wedding announcement.

“It appears that you have undermined my conclusions yet again,” Ishiwaka said, sounding pleased rather than irritated. “You have new inverse maps?” he asked TJ. "I'd like to review them.”

“The maps we have are very new,” TJ said, exchanging an amused glance with Badri. “We've managed to do one in just the past few days. Lady Schrapnell's been most obliging in recent years about providing us with more computational power.”

Ned smiled and said, “We can now access the years 1947 through 1959.”

Ishiwaka looked impressed and said, “Show me.”

We spent the next two hours going over the most recent maps. Ishiwaka showed us a new set of equations he'd developed that might give us a refined mapping and Badri and TJ promised to run new mappings alongside the ones we were already doing.

As we were leaving, Ishiwaka asked us if we'd be attending the conference. I'd thought about attending, but not for long, as the conference would be in Australia this year. Even with Ned's offer to release the restriction against using the net for merely physical travel, I hadn't wanted to take time off from my search for Michael.

Ned said, “TJ and I will be there, but Badri wants to stay in Oxford and Colin will be out on assignment. Apparently, 1976 is closer than Sydney.”

Ishiwaka smiled and said, “Only to an historian.” He turned to me and said, “Good hunting.”

On Friday, Ned handed me a slim folder and said, “Report on Ann Perry.”

“I don't want to know,” I said, handing it back to him. “I don't want to have to go back there and talk to her, knowing how she died. She's a friend.”

“Fair enough,” Ned said, nodding in approval. He flipped open the report briefly and said, “Your next drop should be to 1978, as Ann will be in America for most of that year. We'll set up a precise date when you've wrapped things up in 1976.”

November 1976

I decided to skip ahead to 1944 in my search for Commander Harold. Now that I knew Michael had likely been working for Fortitude South, I no longer needed to find out more about Commander Harold and Jonathan, but I wanted to satisfy my curiosity.

On my second day back, I mentioned to Ann that I thought I was nearly finished with my research and would be going back to Leeds soon. She almost succeeded in hiding her disappointment. I felt sorry for her, but couldn't think of anything I could do that would help. I liked her, but I wasn't in love with her, and my awareness of her feelings made interacting with her increasingly challenging. Was this how Polly had felt about me in 2060?

I skimmed endless pages of memos and reports, and learned that Commander Harold and Jonathan had been very busy indeed. In addition to delivering supplies and messages to the Resistance and occasionally smuggling people in and out of Occupied France, they'd also mapped the Normandy beaches and done minesweeping work in the run-up to D-Day. On Thursday, I found a terse memo from the end of June with the subject, “Resources no longer available to us,” containing many names, including Captain Doolittle and First Mate Alfred. Someone had scrawled, “Notify next-of-kin after war where practicable.”

And that was all. I didn't even know how the Mlle. Jeanette had been destroyed, but given the missions she'd undertaken, I was hardly surprised. It seemed unfair, somehow, that they'd survived for so long, only to perish as the tide was turning.

“Look at this one,” Ann said. She looked at me uncertainly and said, “Are you all right, Connor?”

“Yes,” I said. “I've just found a memo about Commander Harold's death. I'm done here. Buy you dinner, to make up for last time? I promise not to dash off to the loo.”

She gave me a bittersweet smile, clearly aware of the limitations of our relationship. I took her to the same pub we'd been to after Dunworthy's death, and we had a pleasant meal, exchanging funny stories about our childhood and some of the dons we'd encountered. As we left the pub, I paused to say goodbye, and considered kissing her. Ever perceptive, she said, “No. Not if you don't mean it.”

I bent down and tenderly kissed her hair, saying, “You've been marvelous. You'll never know how much you've helped me,” and left while the tears were still forming in her eyes.

May 1978

After a weekend in Oxford blissfully free of drunken undergraduates, I resumed my there-and-back routine with 1978 as my target year in the past. I'd found another bedsit and spent the next four months recapitulating some of the work Ann had done in 1976. I'd located the thesis she'd written after doing her research, but a brief review told me that her thesis, while well-written, didn't contain enough of the sort of details I needed to locate Michael. From a physical standpoint, the reading room hadn't changed in two years, but Ann's absence made the long hours of research more tedious than they'd been in 1976. Her absence affected me in other ways, as well, as I learned to my chagrin when I was grounded to Oxford for being underweight again. Apparently, I'd underestimated the impact of all those contraband sandwiches.

I did my best to assemble a list of Fortitude South personnel, gleaned from various documents. My list would have been more useful if I'd been compiling real names, but cross-checking my partial list against available records in Oxford indicated that at least some of the names given were false identities.

I began looking for records pertaining to deceptive messages in 1944 and soon saw that Ann had been right about some names cropping up repeatedly. As with the personal ads in 1941, Michael had been doing his best to signal his presence to the future.

Looking through all the documents made me freshly aware of how massive an undertaking Fortitude had been. Coordinating the controlled release of information and misinformation had been a monumental task. Fortunately for me, a tiny portion of the documents included collections of deceptive articles that had been planted in local newspapers. Unfortunately, there was no indication of who'd written the articles, so I had no idea what name Michael had been using.

A pattern gradually emerged. There were many messages that were completely innocuous from my viewpoint, but nearly all the ones I'd found mentioning Polly, Mary, Eileen, and Sebastian in various configurations had been published in local papers like the Croydon Clarion Call and the Sudbury Weekly Shopper. Perhaps there were different writers targeting different papers, and I'd found the ones Michael had been assigned to. I saw so many references to Notting Hill Gate and to Townsend that I became convinced Polly must have worked at Townsend Brothers and sheltered at night in Notting Hill Gate Station.

Cardle, Dunworthy, and Colin also turned up a few times and I even saw Davies once. Cardle was clearly referring to the address on Cardle Street that I'd found in the personal ads. Did the use of “Dunworthy” mean that Dunworthy was with him somehow, or was it merely there to draw my attention? For years, we'd been proceeding on the assumption that Dunworthy was trapped somewhere in the Blitz. He'd gone on the last drop to England before the closure. Could the slippage had been bad enough to land him in 1944 with Michael? I'd need to review the list of Dunworthy's World War II drops.

I'd feared the messages might end with D-Day, but they'd continued for a few weeks, and then shifted their focus. Instead of complaints about traumatized livestock and empty beer bottles, there were deceptive articles about V-1 and V-2 attacks and false death notices.

I found some articles in October 1944 to take back to Oxford. And then, there was nothing. I pushed forward into 1945, but the messages from Michael had ceased.

May 2066

That Friday, I told the retrieval team what I'd found and what I hadn't.

“We've worried, from time to time, that the messages are coincidental and that we've been reading too much into them,” I said. “I found an article from October of 1944 about two women making Christmas crackers for soldiers that included the words Mary, O'Reilly, Polly, Sebastian, Cardle, Townsend Brothers, Colin, and the mottoes 'A stitch in time saves nine' and 'Seek and you shall find'. There's also a death notice for a James Dunworthy of Notting Hill from the same month. He's listed as the victim of a V-2 rocket attack.”

“That can't be coincidence,” Kivrin said.

“That's the good news,” I agreed. “The bad news is that I haven't found any messages after October.”

“That might not be bad news,” Ned said. “Yes, I know you're worried that it could mean Michael was killed, but it could just as easily mean we retrieved him, or that he was assigned to some other duty where he was no longer able to send us messages. You still haven't been able to identify his cover name in Fortitude South?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Perhaps next week.”

“Start by reviewing the lists of lost operatives after October 1944,” Finch suggested, and I nodded soberly.

September 1978

Occasionally, I'd found “lost asset” lists sprinkled among the other Fortitude South documents. They didn't appear to be generated on a set schedule, so I was forced to go through all the documents instead of being able to skip ahead to the next week or the next month. I noted several names reported lost in late 1944, but there was no particular name that drew my interest. Sometimes, there was a brief notation indicating how and where someone had died, but often there was only a name and a date.

I knew that Fortitude South had employed an extensive spy network, and that some of its assets had been completely imaginary agents. They'd been invented so they could be advantageously placed in situations where they might witness whatever mix of truth and lies British Intelligence wanted to feed to the Germans. Could some of the names I'd written down actually represent people who'd never existed?

I remembered Mavis Powell and the brief condolence letter she'd received after the war. Someone, somewhere must have kept a record of Commander Harold's true identity, as well as his war-time activities. Presumably, a number of similar letters would have been written to other bereaved families. Where were they?

Try as I might, I couldn't remember exactly when Mavis had received the letter. Perhaps she'd never told me. I skipped ahead to May 1945, on the off chance that someone had begun writing letters before Japan's surrender.

I gradually uncovered a series of memos, beginning in June 1945, usually titled, “Survivor notification,” including the one for Commander Harold and Jonathan. It simply said, “Located Mavis Powell, relative of Captain Doolittle and First Mate Alfred. Letter sent.” Even in death and after victory, their true identities had been masked. There must have been a master list somewhere of false and true names, but I hadn't found it yet.

Michael had had no family in 1944, unless he'd listed the other historians as relatives. By 1944, Dunworthy and Polly should have been dead, victims of their deadlines, but Eileen might have survived. If she had, and I could find her, I might yet be able to retrieve them.

While looking for a notification memo, I stumbled across something else instead. There was a rather concerned memo reporting that no next of kin had been located for Lt. Ernest Worthing and that a background check indicated there was no supporting documentation for his true passport. Someone had scrawled, “Check Orpington,” on the memo, but there was no further information.

Ernest Worthing was one of the names on my list. He'd been killed during a rocket attack in October 1944.

I went back to Oxford for the weekend, but kept the discovery of Worthing to myself. I couldn't bring myself to discuss him until I was more certain of his identity.

I spent the next two weeks hurrying through documents before finding another one about Worthing. “Worthing admitted to Orpington 30 May 1940,” it began, which hardly narrowed things down, considering all the wounded who'd come back from Dunkirk that week. “Records indicate amnesia present at admission. Temporary passport issued December 1940. Sponsoring employer in USA denies knowledge of Worthing or his editor. In view of his impressive war record, strongly believe he was not a Nazi agent. Speculate that 1940 amnesia never fully resolved and Worthing fabricated an identity to facilitate release from hospital.”

Could this be Michael? An American, admitted to Orpington during Dunkirk and released in December? The mention of a non-existent editor suggested that Worthing had been a war correspondent. When and how had Worthing been assigned to Fortitude South?

August 2066

“I may have located Michael,” I said, at the next retrieval team meeting.

No one said anything, but the way they avoided my gaze told me they knew it wasn't good news. I explained about the notification letters and the memos about Ernest Worthing.

“Killed by a V-1,” Ned said dully.

“It looks like it,” I said, “although I haven't had time to search for an account of the incident. I'll admit that things look bad, but if we were trying to stage a retrieval, wouldn't we use our knowledge of rocket attacks to give the impression that Michael had been killed?”

“Things don't look bad,” Badri said. “Things are bad. We've been deceiving ourselves. Dunworthy's dead. Polly's dead. Michael's dead. For all we know, Merope's dead, too, and we just haven't found her. Ishiwaka was right. We aren't going to be able to save any of them.”

“You may be right,” I admitted, “but I'm not quitting. I won't believe any of them are dead until I see their bodies.”

The rest of the meeting had been dismal. The only bright spot was Badri's report that the closure had receded to May 1945.

1945. I could go to V-E Day. I'd gone back to Kivrin's for a drink, and broached the possibility to her.

“You won't be able to change things,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “But if I could see her, even from a distance...”

“Would it make things better or worse?” she asked.

“I don't know,” I admitted. “I'm going to do it anyway, unless Ned absolutely forbids it.”

“If he does, I'll work on him,” Kivrin said. “You've earned a glimpse of her, even if it's the last time you'll see her. Especially if it's the last time you'll see her.”

Ned didn't seem that surprised to find me still in Oxford on the following Monday. “Taking some time off?” he said. “Not a bad idea. You'll get back on the horse soon enough.”

“I want to go to V-E Day,” I said. “I know I can't accomplish anything. I just... want to.”

Ned looked at me without speaking for a long time, then said, “Very well. You can go as soon as Wardrobe has a suitable costume ready for you.”

I'd thought it would take weeks to get something in my size from Wardrobe, but it was only a matter of days. “Your name is Templer? Wait here,” a Wardrobe tech told me, and disappeared for twenty minutes. He returned with an ARP uniform that was miraculously long enough for me.

“Yes, all we'll need to do is take it in a bit across the shoulders,” the tech said, “and the trousers are a bit loose in the waist. Lost weight recently?”

Was everyone in Oxford obsessed with my weight? “Why do you ask?” I said.

The tech blinked at me. “This costume was ordered for you some time ago. You didn't know?”

“No,” I said, and wondered whether Ned or Kivrin had arranged it. They must have been hopeful enough about my chances of going on a retrieval drop that they'd wanted my costume ready on short notice. Well, at least I'd get some use out of it, even if it looked as if there might be no one left to retrieve.

May 1945

Badri sent me through to the drop in St. Paul's Station. I couldn't tell whether he disapproved of my drop or not. I couldn't tell whether I cared about his opinion or not. I was still privately angry with him for believing our historians were dead, although I knew that was unfair. All of us had experienced ups and downs over the years.

I'd worried that people might notice my exit from the emergency staircase, but there were so many people going in all directions, laughing, singing, and calling out to companions they'd been separated from that I don't think they would have noticed me if I'd been starkers.

I joined the crush and let it carry me onto a westbound train. By the time we got to Tottenham Court Road, the crowd was so thick that I regretted getting on the train, although I'd had little choice in the matter. I decided to walk the rest of the way to Trafalgar Square and struggled toward the up escalator. The crowd outside was nearly as bad as it had been in the station.

By the time I reached Trafalgar Square, the celebration was in full swing. There were bonfires and people blowing whistles and waving flags. I saw a conga line weaving in and out of the crowd, and a group of middle-aged women attempting an Irish jig. From an objective point of view, none of the dancing was very skillful, but the overpowering sense of joy made watching them difficult to resist. As on the train, people were laughing and crying and singing and I saw complete strangers kissing with enthusiasm. I knew they were strangers because I was the recipient of many such kisses.

I'd gone there to see a particular pretty girl, although I'd no idea how I could possibly find her in the crowd. I'd hoped that her FANY uniform would help her stand out, but there were a number of women in uniform there. I kissed a few of them, and thought perhaps I'd seen a glimpse of Polly in the distance when the conga line roared through and cut me off from the sight of her.

There! Over near the lions. It wasn't Polly, but that woman in a green coat with red hair. Could that be Merope? I stood there, staring at her for a moment, then took a few steps toward the lions.

I didn't get far, though, because a boy set off a string of firecrackers and flung them to the ground just in front of me. I stepped back smartly to avoid injury and caught a look in his eyes that I couldn't quite identify. Satisfaction? Defiance? Protectiveness? Whatever it was, I had no doubt that he'd done it on purpose. I scowled at him and looked toward the lions, but the red-haired woman was gone, and the next moment, my attention was claimed by a young woman who enjoyed the first kiss we exchanged so much that she was intent on claiming a second, and a third. We were eventually separated by the conga line, and I resumed my search for Polly, without success.

August 2066

“Did you see her?” Badri asked as I came through, and I was suddenly ashamed I'd been angry with him. He had every right to despair.

“No,” I said, “but I was kissed by many pretty girls.”

“Not a total loss, then,” he said.

I nodded, but didn't tell him I thought I'd seen Merope.

I hadn't intended to tell anyone about Merope, but I made the mistake of deciding to wait for the next Monday to go on another drop, and those few days were enough for Kivrin to realize I was keeping something back.

“If I did see Merope, does that mean we failed all the way around?” I asked. “That the others are dead and Merope was stuck in the past for good?”

“Or does it mean we succeeded and Merope went on a later drop to V-E Day, as she'd wanted?” Kivrin said.

“Do you think Dunworthy would let her go out again after this?” I asked.

“After what?” Kivrin said. “We have no idea of what's happening from the historians' perspective. I think we can safely say that Merope couldn't get to her drop for her rendezvous, but it's possible we sent a retrieval team for her before she left Backbury, or shortly afterwards. It could be that the worst that's happened to her is being cooped up in a house full of sick children. As for Dunworthy not letting her go on another assignment, think of where we've been and what we experienced.”

“And Dunworthy wouldn't let me go anywhere, afterwards,” I said.

“Colin, you were twelve. He had every intention of sending you on assignment when you were old enough. And he didn't try to keep me from going out again, once I'd recovered. If that was Merope, I'd take it as a sign you succeeded, so you'd better get back to work.”

November 1978

I returned to my research the following Monday and combed through Fortitude South records from 1945 for several weeks before finding anything of interest. I discovered a cache of documents related to the deaths of operatives. As secret as Fortitude South had been, there had apparently been secrets within secrets and I'd stumbled across a collection of papers from the innermost sanctum.

There was a memo about Worthing which read, “Incident report indicates Worthing killed in Croydon by V-1 17 October 1944, but no body found. Identity established by location and presence of Worthing's jeep and copies of articles, clearly composed by Worthing, retrieved 18 October and subsequently published. Review of records and personal interviews indicate presence of three ambulances at the scene, although one FANY states that a fourth ambulance, from Brixton, also responded. Speculate that Worthing was transported from the scene and expired before identifying himself.”

If they believed Worthing had been taken away in an ambulance, then they couldn't have found his body at the scene. Either he'd been utterly destroyed, or he'd been retrieved by us, or he'd died without anyone knowing who he was. It was time to chase down the call logs from the ambulance posts, to see if they could tell me anything.

By Friday, I'd located records for the ambulance post at Croydon. I'd worried that the call log for October 1944 might be missing or incomplete, but the entries for 17 October were there. None of the patients transported that evening sounded like they could have been Michael. Which other posts might have sent ambulances to the aftermath of the rocket attack?

October 2066

Ned and Kivrin were in the lab when I came through. As my weekly drops had become a matter of routine, it had become less common to find both of them awaiting my arrival. A handful of times, I'd come through and found no one there but Badri or Linna.

“Has something happened?” I asked, as the veils lifted.

“You tell us,” Ned said. “What did you learn this week?”

“I learned that Worthing's body wasn't found at the scene, but I haven't located the ambulance that took him away,” I said. “It's not much.”

“It's something,” Kivrin said. “Linna's just finished an update to the map, and the closure's now receded to March 1945.”

“Are we seeing any improvement with the post-1995 closure?” I asked.

“None,” Ned said. “Your mother called,” he added. “Apparently she's been trying to reach you for a few weeks?”

I sighed. “She left a message but I haven't responded yet.” I hadn't wanted to. Coming back with the news of Michael's likely death had been bad enough. I hadn't felt strong enough to deal with my mother on top of it.

I called her, next day, and caught her in one of her talkative moods.

“I have such good news,” she said.

“You've married Stephen,” I guessed. Stephen was her current livein, and fairly decent, so I didn't mind at all.

“Yes, dear, we did elope and you really should have been there, but you were off... where?”

“1978,” I answered. “Or possibly 1945.”

There was a brief silence, and she said uncertainly, “But I thought you couldn't get to World War II.”

“Things are changing, Mum,” I told her.

“Well, that's lovely, and actually things are changing for me as well,” she said. “Stephen and I are moving to America. I have some things from your father and your Great-aunt Mary that I think you should have. When can you come down to London?”

I was tempted to tell her to send whatever it was by post, but I might not see her again. I nearly hadn't made it back from 1960, and I might yet have cause to travel to 1944. I agreed to come down for lunch the following day.

My father. I was amazed she still had any of his things, since she'd never spoken about him. What I knew of him I'd learned from Great-aunt Mary.

“Killed in a skiing accident, dear, before your mother even knew she was pregnant. You have his smile,” she'd told me, when my ten-year-old self had gathered the courage to ask.

“She never talks about him.”

“I don't think she ever quite forgave him for dying, dear. Grief takes people that way, sometimes. And your mother's always been quite possessive about men. She wasn't done enjoying him.”

As a child, I hadn't understood her, but as an adult, I could see the truth in her remarks.

“Tell me about my father,” I'd begged.

“I didn't know him that well. They'd only been married six months. He was a lovely man, though. Intelligent, of course, and very charming. Rather good-looking, actually. And undoubtedly in love with your mother. I sometimes think your mother keeps acquiring and discarding men because she's still looking for someone to want her as much as your father did.”

“But she keeps finding men who only want her money.” By the age of ten, I'd long since worked that out.

“Yes, Colin, that's a drawback of being well-off and a good reason not to tell people you have money. Bear that in mind when you have a girlfriend.”

“Necrotic,” I'd said, wrinkling my nose in disgust.

I rented a skimmer and went down to London the next day, to visit my mother and Stephen. Perhaps she'd finally found someone not interested in her money. To my eyes, he seemed genuinely devoted to her in an understated way, and when she looked at him, her smile didn't have that strained, brittle quality I'd seen around other men. I returned to Oxford, thinking how ironic it was that we should have had the most pleasant encounter we'd experienced in years right before she moved away. I put the boxes she'd given me in a corner of my sitting room and went back to work.

January 1979

I'd brought a map with me from Oxford. It wasn't strictly a contemp map, but Props had a replica of a widely-used 1939 map of the UK that I could use to keep track of the various ambulance posts. I'd thought I'd known all the little villages south and east of London, but my first week searching ambulance post records had proven me wrong.

I began by looking for ambulance posts in the vicinity of Croydon. I made three more trips home to Oxford while reviewing call logs. I learned that an ambulance from Dulwich, Polly's post, had gone to the incident in Croydon, but that Polly had been elsewhere, collecting supplies from Streatham. I checked all the posts within twenty-five miles of Croydon, but couldn't find a record of a third ambulance being dispatched to Croydon, let alone a fourth. Where had those ambulances come from? More importantly, where had they gone?

I decided to go back to British Intelligence records, and found another memo about Worthing's death, before returning to the papers from December 1940. I'd searched those documents before, looking for Mike Davis. Now, I was looking for Ernest Worthing.

I found him, too, in a brief memo from January 1941, stating that Ernest Worthing had been recruited to decode intercepts.

December 2066

Ned and Kivrin were waiting for me in the lab again.

“Has the map changed?” I asked.

“I haven't asked,” Ned said. “I came because I wanted to get your report straight away. You've been surprisingly closemouthed these past few weeks. Need I remind you of Lady Schrapnell's conditions regarding your employment?”

“I haven't had anything definitive to report,” I said.

“You're a rotten bad liar,” Kivrin said. “You've been bursting with some secret knowledge.”

“It wasn't knowledge. It was a guess. Can we have the retrieval team meeting Monday? I'd like to review my notes and consolidate my thoughts before reporting,” I said.

“Important news? Should I ask everyone to attend?” Ned asked.

“If possible,” I said.

“Very well,” Ned said. “Come along and join the team for dinner. The others are waiting for us. We can discuss other business tonight and set up a meeting early next week.”

Kivrin gave me the sort of look that meant she intended to winkle my secrets out of me. Not this time, I thought, chuckling to myself.

The following week, the retrieval team came to Dunworthy's rooms after lunch to see what I'd learned.

“I've been going over some of the notes that Polly wrote up after her 1944 drop,” I said. Most of Polly's belongings had been packed up and put in storage back in 2060, but her mother had allowed us to keep Polly's research notes as a possible source of clues. “I thought I'd remembered a passage about how chaotic ambulance work could be. She mentions that ambulances often responded to incidents they hadn't been summoned to, if they happened to be passing at the right time. Sometimes those stops were logged and sometimes not.

“While reviewing memos in the Fortitude South papers, I found a brief mention of Worthing's death. The memo states that there were definitely three ambulances at the scene, but one of the FANYs claimed that a fourth ambulance, from Brixton, was also present. I've been able to locate two of the responding ambulances, one from Croydon and one from Dulwich. I've checked the posts nearest Croydon, but haven't located the third ambulance yet. It may have been from a distant post on some errand, such as transporting a patient to Orpington. There's no record of a Brixton ambulance being there at all.”

“Is it possible Michael was in one of the ambulances and died on the way to hospital? How do we know the fourth ambulance was from Brixton?” Verity asked.

“I found a subsequent memo in the Fortitude South papers indicating that they made a search of hospitals and morgues at the time without locating Worthing,” I said. “All I know about the Brixton ambulance is that a FANY responding to the incident saw it.”

“You believe the injured man was Davies?” Finch said. “Why, apart from his mysterious disappearance?”

I reminded them about the memos I'd found about Ernest Worthing. “So we know Worthing was presumed to have been killed during that V-1 attack in Croydon. We know Worthing was an American, whose passport application was rejected when his sponsor said they'd never heard of Worthing or his editor. He entered and left Orpington at the right times to be Michael.”

“That's highly suggestive, but could be a coincidence,” Ned said.

“It wasn't,” I told him. “One of the Fortitude South memos indicates that someone went to Croydon to search the remnants of Worthing's jeep and found a portfolio of his articles, which were published posthumously. That death notice for Dunworthy and the article with all the references? They were published after Worthing's death, and only in the Sudbury Weekly Shopper. The building that was destroyed in Croydon was the office of the Clarion Call. Worthing had been dropping off articles for the editor, who was killed in the attack.”

They all stared at me in stunned silence, then Kivrin said, “I think we have a retrieval to plan.”

Chapter Text

January 2067

For years, the retrieval team had been nibbling away at finding our missing historians. I'd occasionally been frustrated by the slowness of our progress. Kivrin had once told me the team would go all out to retrieve the historians if the closure improved.

She'd been right. The team was galvanized by the possibility that we might be able to retrieve Michael. Even Badri, who'd become increasingly convinced that Ishiwaka was right, was suddenly eager to make the attempt. Ned suggested we begin planning at once. I fetched my camera specs and took several careful photographs of the blackboards. After checking the images on a handheld, I cleared the boards and we began working.

When I was an undergraduate, I'd imagined that staging a retrieval once we'd located the historians would be a simple thing: I'd toss on a contemp outfit, pop into the net, and be back with them in no time. It had never occurred to me that I might need to retrieve a badly injured historian and that I'd need an ambulance to do it.

The first, most obvious problem was the ambulance. I couldn't carry one through the net in my pocket, although the retrieval team did discuss the possibility of constructing a replica ambulance and sending it through.

“We've never transported anything so massive,” Badri said. “The energy requirements would be tremendous. I don't think our equipment could handle it, even if we could find a way to get that much power.”

Ned wrote, “Ambulance,” on the first board, in large letters. Underneath, he wrote, “Send through net? Likely not. Badri will check,” and Badri nodded his agreement.

“Does anyone else have a net with more capacity than ours?” I asked.

“No,” Ned said. “Lady Schrapnell may be demanding, but she's never scrimped on expenses.”

“What if we sent an ambulance through in pieces and assembled it there?” I said.

“Where could we do that, and be assured of any privacy?” Verity countered.

“Probably some remote area halfway to Scotland,” Finch said. “The question would then be cadging enough petrol to get to Croydon and disposing of the ambulance afterwards. We could set up a second drop near Croydon to send Michael through, then take the ambulance back north to disassemble and transport it again.”

“It would be easier to borrow a contemp one for a few hours,” Kivrin said.

“The first thing we should do is review all the records for the ambulance post in Brixton,” Ned said. “Have you done that yet?” he asked, turning to me.

“No; I've only reviewed the call logs.”

“Check all of their records,” Finch suggested. “Not just a record of which ambulances were transporting patients on the seventeenth. They may have had an ambulance in for repairs. Or one of their ambulances might have been transferred to another post and hadn't had the name repainted.”

“Or someone, namely us, might have stolen it,” I said.

“It's not just an ambulance's disappearance you should look for,” Kivrin said. “We need to know if any ambulances turned up unexpectedly near Croydon.”

Ned turned to Badri.  “How close to Croydon do you think we'll be able to place a drop?”

“No idea,” Badri replied. “I'll start running some unmanneds.”

“Let's assume for the moment that we can get our hands on a contemp ambulance,” Kivrin said. “What else do we need?”

“Someone to drive it, obviously,” Badri said.

“That would be me,” I said.

“You'll need a partner,” Verity told me. “You can't carry a stretcher by yourself.”

“I'm strong enough to carry him,” I objected.

“But that's not what a bona fide ambulance crew would do, unless absolutely necessary,” Ned said.

“I can't possibly spend more than a few hours in 1944 posing as an ambulance attendant, in any case,” I pointed out. “The ambulance posts were primarily staffed by FANYs. As a man, I'd likely have been sent overseas.”

“Perhaps we should send two female historians, posing as FANYs,” Finch said.

“Risky,” I said. “They'd need to establish some sort of presence to get anywhere near an ambulance. They'd be doomed if they encountered someone like Lady Denewell, who personally knew many of the FANYs.”

“Then perhaps you should go as something else that would give us access to an ambulance,” Badri said. “What about a mechanic? You could take an ambulance that was being serviced.”

“That's a good idea,” Verity said, “but you'll still need someone to help with the stretcher.”

“Two people means two cover stories,” I said.

“You will need to develop a cover, to get access to the ambulance,” Ned said. “Another historian could come through at the last minute, after you'd already got the ambulance, for the actual retrieval. They'd need identity papers and a costume of course, but they wouldn't need an elaborate cover story.”

I didn't want to risk another historian on this retrieval, but I could see I wasn't going to win this point.

“What if you posed as a mechanic delivering a repaired ambulance back to its post?” Finch said. “You could say the ambulance had been transporting someone to Orpington and was damaged on the way back to Brixton. The FANYs who were driving it home stopped at an incident and were wounded or killed by a rocket while they were treating victims.”

“We could send a female historian along to pose as one of the injured FANYs,” Kivrin suggested. “Put her arm in a sling, and if you're stopped, say that you've been instructed to deliver her and the ambulance to Brixton.”

“You're too old,” I blurted out, then flushed with embarrassment. “Most of the drivers were my age or younger.”

“I shouldn't think that would matter, in the dark,” Ned said. “Or we could send Phoebe.”

I was even less thrilled at the prospect of risking Phoebe. Kivrin, at least, could be counted on in a tight spot. I wasn't sure that Phoebe had enough experience yet.

“We can decide that later,” Ned said, apparently reading my expression. “I think absconding with an ambulance in for repairs is our best option so far. We should check the records to see if we can take an actual ambulance from Brixton. If not, we'll repaint or put temporary decals on a different ambulance. I like Finch's suggested cover story of returning a repaired vehicle to its home post. Even if you're questioned, it's unlikely anyone will bother to check until after the retrieval's finished.”

“So what research needs to be done first?” Verity said.

“Review records for the ambulance post in Brixton,” Ned said, writing it down on one of the boards. “Review records in the Croydon area to see if an abandoned ambulance was found in October 1944, or if an ambulance anywhere in England went missing around that time.”

“Review the records of any ambulances in the shop for repair during that time-frame,” I said. “We can't take an ambulance out of service that will be needed elsewhere, or we'll introduce an incongruity.”

“This is going to take some time,” Finch said. “Do you want to take along another historian for your research drops?”

I considered it, and said, “Not just yet. October's still closed to us.”

“I can go, if you change your mind,” Verity offered.

“Skills you'll need,” Ned said to me. “Drive an ambulance, repair an ambulance, contemp first aid, basic military training.”

“Military training?” I said.

“To pose as a wounded veteran,” Kivrin said. “Those scars will finally see some use.”

“I'd better get in to see Ferguson to have the arm finished,” I said.

“So, military training, including familiarity with a contemp infantry soldier's kit and duties,” Ned echoed. “What else?”

“He'll need a cover story, complete with documents, and a refresher course on recent contemp events,” said Verity. “Not just facts about military campaigns, but small details about everyday life that a contemp would know, such as how to use ration coupons, how much things cost, and popular songs and radio programs.”

I nodded, thinking of the lectures in Practical Historical Research I'd attended at the beginning of my third year. The dons had taken turns instructing us how to survive in their respective time periods. Kivrin had given the first lecture.

“Food and toilets,” she'd said. “Nothing will expose an historian faster than being ignorant about the contemp ways of handling those basic needs.”

Andrew had snorted derisively and said, “I know how to use a toilet.”

“Do you?” Kivrin had responded. “It's 1348. Are there privies? Chamber pots? Can you relieve yourself behind any convenient bush? Can you do it in front of other people, and if so, whom? What do you use for lavatory paper? What words do you use to tell someone you need the loo, or is the subject taboo? Are there different answers to those questions depending on age, gender, location, or social status?”

Andrew had glared at her silently, while she continued, “It's not so simple, you see. And sometimes we don't know the answers to simple questions about things like food and toilets and sex either because of propriety or because the answers were so obvious to contemps that they never bothered to write anything down.”

Yes, I'd definitely need to learn how to use a ration book and what sorts of foods I could reasonably expect to eat in wartime England. Also, what sort of food I would have eaten as a soldier, including the slang terms for it.

“What about his partner?” Verity asked. “I'm thinking first aid measures, both modern and contemp, and a skeletal cover story at minimum, in case something goes wrong and they're stuck in 1944.”

Ned wrote that down, and suggested, “Modern medical supplies disguised as contemp ones?”

“Sounds like a joint effort between Props and Research,” Finch said. “I'll get them started on it tomorrow.”

“How long is this all going to take?” Badri said.

“As long as it takes,” Ned said, shrugging.

“Research first,” I said. “I'll go out tomorrow and do a short week.”

“Do that,” Ned agreed. “You've got a lot of training you'll need to take care of here in Oxford. I don't think you can manage it all with implants. Do you want to do all the research first, and then train, or do short weeks, or alternate weeks between training and research?”

“I'm not sure,” I said. “Let me think about it, and see how slow the ambulance research is likely to be.”

“We'll scope out your training and contact potential instructors while you're away,” Ned said.

Kivrin stayed on, after the rest of the team had left to attend to other responsibilities. “Why don't you want me to go?” she said.

“Kiv, I don't want anyone else to go. It's dangerous. And in any case, you're probably too short to be a FANY.”

“You think I can't manage a stretcher?” she asked.

“I'm sure you're strong enough. I've seen you do plenty of farm work,” I said, and I had. I'd done it beside her, on many occasions, in case I needed those skills for some assignment. “I don't want to risk you. If Dunworthy's alive...” I began, and then trailed off. I tried hard never to admit the possibility that Dunworthy was dead, but I slipped up sometimes.

“You don't want him to lose both of us, if things go wrong. Colin, if you don't come back and he does, my presence isn't going to matter. He will be devastated.”

“You can't deny it would be worse if you were dead, too. I'm not the only one he's fond of,” I argued.

“True,” she said, “but I don't think you should take Phoebe or one of Ned's new recruits simply because they look more like a FANY to you. You're going to need someone who won't panic when the plan falls apart, and they don't have as many years in the field as I do. Or any experience with things going horribly wrong.”

“I know,” I admitted, then said, “Perhaps Finch would be willing to go. World War II is a ten for Badri and TJ, and I don't want to take anyone with children, which leaves out Ned, Verity, and Linna. And your hair is too long.”

“I'll cut my damned hair,” she said. “It'll grow back. We started this together. We're going to finish it together.”

“You're not even qualified for Twentieth Century.”

“Care to bet on that?” she asked. “Do you truly think I would have let you go off on a practicum to 1960 without being able to fetch you home myself?”

I was stunned. “You've already got a costume, don't you?” I said. “Why do I always feel like I'm one step behind the rest of the team?”

“Because we've been at this game longer than you have,” she said. “All these years of the closure haven't been as dead a time as you suppose. Ned and Finch have been hashing out contingency plans since Dunworthy left. Verity and I both have costumes for Twentieth Century, including some for World War II. Ned and Finch do, as well. We've always believed we'd reach this point, some day.”

There had been times, over the years, when I'd felt alone, when I'd wondered if the others were merely humoring me. I realized now how badly I'd underestimated them. I'd done most of the searching not because they'd considered the task unimportant but because they'd thought I was equal to it. Meanwhile, they'd been supporting me and quietly preparing for the day when my search was done.

How could I ask any of them to risk their lives with me?

February 1979

I returned to the tedium of reviewing ambulance post records with enthusiasm. It took me the better part of two weeks to untangle the Brixton records and account for every ambulance at the post during mid-October. None of them could have been used to retrieve Michael.

Could the fourth ambulance have been a new one, or one being transferred to Brixton at the time of the V-1 attack? I searched through the records from mid-October forward. In late October, I found a notation that the post had taken possession of an ambulance returned to them, “found near London.” The word “returned” had been underlined and had a question mark and an exclamation point next to it. So, the ambulance had come to Brixton, but had clearly originated somewhere else. I looked for any letters or memos confirming the mysterious nature of the ambulance's appearance, but apparently the post commander had decided not to question their good fortune.

January 2067

“It must have been a contemp ambulance,” I said, at the next team meeting. “If we'd taken an ambulance through the net, either whole or in pieces, we wouldn't have left it behind.”

“That tallies with Badri's calculations,” Ned said. “His first guess was right; we can't send an ambulance through whole. I agree, we would have dismantled or destroyed a replica if we'd taken one through in pieces. And the risk of being discovered while assembling or disassembling one is too great.”

I nodded. “I'd be lucky to be suspected of stealing the vehicle to sell parts on the black market. That would probably only get me a stiff prison sentence. If they thought me a Nazi spy, I'd likely be hanged.”

“So now we have to find a contemp ambulance,” Finch said grimly.

“There were a lot of ambulance posts near London,” Kivrin said. “Perhaps we should start there.”

Ned turned to me. “You have months of lessons to work on here. Let me send someone else to look for the ambulance.”

I felt strangely possessive about my research, but realized that Ned was right: I had a lot of prep to do, and searching ambulance post records was something I could hand off to another historian.

“All right,” I said. “What's first?”

Finch said, “You'll need at least a week of no time travel before we do any implants. The cumulative effect of so many drops should be catching up with you again.”

I nodded. One of the things we'd learned during my search for Michael was that one could get a mild case of time lag doing weekly there-and-back drops for extended periods of time. I'd had to take a week off after every six months of research.

“In addition to the implants, you should take hands-on training,” Ned said. “The implants won't last forever, and we might need to send you in months before the retrieval, to establish yourself as unremarkable and trustworthy.”

“I'll need the right sort of calluses, anyway,” I said. Kivrin had taught me that the absence or presence of calluses could also betray an historian. “Where should I start?”

“We've found you a drill instructor,” Finch said. “You may as well begin there.”

I thought I'd been in decent shape before training began. I'd been taking combat lessons every weekend for years and had spent some of my lonely bedsit evenings in a contemp fitness center, but the drill instructor managed to find some muscles I hadn't used.

“Actually, you're in far better shape than most of the historians I see,” he remarked one day, seeing me wince, “and your knife and hand-to-hand skills are excellent. Let's see how you do carrying a full soldier's kit.”

I'd managed it, but it would have been a distinct bore if I hadn't done so much training wearing chain mail. Marching in full kit on dry level ground hadn't been too bad, but plodding through a gently rolling muddy field was exhausting. I had a new-found respect for the British soldiers who'd done it, day after day, sometimes on short rations and under fire.

After four weeks of intensive drill, my instructor believed I could pass for a good recruit if not an experienced soldier. Only then was I allowed to receive an implant. The implant brought my instinctive responses up to a standard that met my instructor's approval, and he scheduled me for weekly lessons after that, to reinforce the effect of the implant.

February 2067

I'd expected I'd be doing my first aid refresher course alone, but when I arrived at the lecture room, Kivrin, Kat, and Phoebe were there.

“You're Ancient History,” I said to Kat.

“I'm cross-training,” she said. “Just in case. Wilkens hasn't given his approval yet.”

“Nor will he,” I said, thinking of Andrew. Wilkens had been very protective of all of his students since Andrew's death, Kat most of all.

“Have you checked a calendar? I'm graduating soon,” she said.

I'd forgotten. I'd spent so little of the past two years in Oxford that I'd lost track of time. Even the change of the seasons wasn't helpful, as I'd sometimes gone back and forth to different seasons, utterly confusing me as to how much time was passing. I'd been aware of the days of the week, as they'd so often dictated whether I was in Oxford or on assignment, but the precise month and date often eluded me.

All historians were required to know some basic first aid techniques before going on their practica. Usually, historians were taught contemp first aid as well, and coached in ways to make modern methods seem less anachronistic to contemps.

Our refresher course proved to be far more extensive than the one I'd done as an undergraduate. We learned how to assess and treat critical injuries and spent time familiarizing ourselves with the sort of supplies that would have been available to ambulance crews during World War II. We also learned how and when to risk using a few modern tricks Props had disguised for us as contemp supplies. After we'd been taught all that, we practiced using it in near-darkness and in the back of a moving vehicle. I quickly discovered how difficult simple tasks could become in the tight confines of an ambulance, even without all the lurching and bumping.

I found I enjoyed spending time with Phoebe and Kat again, although I still shied away from the idea of taking them with me. Kivrin teased me as usual, but applied herself to the course with a determined concentration that told me she fully expected to need what she was learning.

Could I bear to take her with me? Could I prevent her coming?

After eight weeks of first aid, we moved on to driving contemp automobiles, jeeps, and ambulances. I was surprised that Kivrin's feet actually reached the pedals, but she managed it. Kat, who'd never had driving lessons, struggled with the jeep in particular, but eventually we mastered all of the vehicles. Or at least I thought we had, until the instructor swapped the Daimler with a Bentley and I had to learn a new series of quirks.

“Every vehicle has a personality,” the instructor told us in a self-important, condescending tone.

“Some of them more evil than others,” Phoebe said, under her breath.

“Just like instructors,” Kivrin whispered, which made me laugh, earning me a look of reproof from the instructor.

“I'll get you back,” I hissed at her, as soon as the instructor's back was turned.

“Not bloody likely,” she said, grinning.

May 2067

I'd just begun my training as a mechanic when they found the ambulance. Searching the records for ambulance posts had been such a large undertaking that Ned had been sending pairs of historians to the 1980s for months.

“We've been monumentally thick,” Ned told me.

“More so than usual?” Kivrin said.

“Yes,” Ned said. “By the fall of 1944, the southeast part of England was suffering heavily from V-1 and V-2 attacks, but many of the staging camps used for D-Day had emptied out. Since the demand for ambulances had increased in southeast England, but decreased in other places, some equipment and personnel were transferred to posts closer to London. We've been looking at the Brixton ambulance post eight miles from Croydon. There's also a Brixton hundreds of miles away, in Devon.”

I made a face. “This is my fault,” I said. “I should have checked.”

“No one else thought of it, either, until last week,” Finch said.

“So an ambulance was actually sent from the Brixton in Devon to London?” Kivrin asked.

“It was supposed to go to Orpington,” Ned said. “They were short on ambulances at the time—for most of the war, really—but it never arrived.”

“It can't be that easy,” I said. If all I needed to do was impersonate a mechanic fetching a vehicle, I wouldn't even have to be on assignment for months. Finch could create the proper authorizations for me and the lab could drop me just outside Brixton.

“It isn't,” Finch said. “The ambulance left Devon, bound for Orpington, in July. We've no idea where it was until it was discovered near Bethnal Green on the nineteenth of October.”

“So I'm supposed to just drive around for months?” I said.

“We think it more likely that the ambulance broke down somewhere along the journey and was subsequently repaired. I'll have some historians look for other hints of its location. If they can't find it, we'll need to return to our original idea of taking one that's in for repairs. I've already got historians doing a records search for ambulances that were out of service during October.”

“What if we can't find an ambulance?” I said.

“Then we send one of own, and hope you're not caught,” Ned said.

I went back to fiddling with motors while Finch immersed himself in World War II forms and planned how to fiddle the paperwork. I'd need credentials and a history that could withstand close scrutiny.

Phoebe, Kat, and Kivrin started the automotive repair course with me, but Phoebe and Kat left after a month's worth of learning the basics, which was as much as most FANYs would have known. Kivrin stayed with me to the bitter end.

“You don't have to do this,” I told her one day, as she swore over a scraped knuckle. “In fact, I don't see how you've been doing this.” Lessons for the first aid course had been scheduled around Kivrin's teaching duties, but we hadn't done that for the driving or repair courses. “When have you been teaching?”

“I haven't,” she said. “I applied for an emergency sabbatical in January. Chiswick is covering my lectures this term. I'll admit it's not the way most dons would spend a sabbatical, but I haven't got any stick from Balliol or the University about it. That's likely down to Finch.”

Chiswick was the Jesus don who'd sat in on my interview, back in 2059. “But that means... Kiv, you didn't go away the last time you took a sabbatical, either,” I said, with some surprise. Most dons went to other universities, often overseas, to teach and do research during their sabbaticals. Kivrin had stayed in Oxford both times.

“I used my last sabbatical to qualify for assignment to World War II,” she said.

“And to torment me,” I teased, although I knew she'd done it to be handy in case I needed her.

“As ever,” she agreed.

September 2067

After nearly five months' worth of training, I began to feel that I could repair any sort of automobile, given the proper tools and parts. I'd received an implant full of information specific to World War II vehicles including ones we didn't have examples of, courtesy of one of Ned's historians, who'd gone on several drops to retrieve the information for me.

I'd thought I was ready for my drop, but Ned had one more task for me.

“Do you have your costumes yet?” he asked.

“Yes, and I've done some work in them so they're not too pristine.”

“And I see you've cut your hair. Do you know how to use a contemp razor? You'll be living in close enough quarters that depils won't help you; people will notice if you don't need to shave.”

“Dunworthy taught me,” I said. “Also how to use a straight razor, or even a knife.”

“I might have guessed,” Ned said, with a trace of a smile. “You'll need to speak to Infirmary about simulating a faded long-term suntan. You're supposed to have got your wounds in Italy, at Monte Cassino, but you should have spent a good deal of time outdoors, in various states of undress, because your service record says you were in North Africa before that.”

“But won't I be recently out of hospital?” I asked.

“Yes, which is why the tan should be faded,” he said. “Infirmary can also give you some long-acting pills to simulate a hospital pallor. Once you stop taking them, your color will gradually improve. Finch is working with Props to set up your documents. They'll say you've recently been sent over on a hospital ship from Bari, so we want you to look the part. You'll be assigned to a motor pool near Twickenham.”

“Why Twickenham?” I asked.

“There's a repair shop there for badly damaged vehicles,” Ned said. “Basically, ones that are undriveable or nearly so.”

“I'm trying to steal an ambulance I won't be able to drive,” I said doubtfully.

“Oh, no, they regularly patched vehicles together and sent them back out,” he said. “We've identified four ambulances there in October 1944 that were repaired and back in service by November. We'll put all the details, including what you'll likely need to do to repair them, in an implant with your cover story. Have you reached your limit on implants?”

“I'll need a waiver,” I said. “And I should consult with Ferguson about the pills and the tan. I'm not sure how either will affect what he's done to my scars.”

Ferguson had given me a new scar on my right wrist, and had injected many of the old scars with something that he said would make them look fresh. “Fresh” was an understatement. My leg looked like a monster had just taken a large bite out of it.

I'd wondered, not for the first time, what Polly would make of some of my more gruesome markings, and resolved to mention them to her before she had a chance to see them for herself.

“Very well,” Ned said. “The latest map says the closure has receded to July 1944. Badri's running unmanneds, trying to find a good drop for Croydon, and your paperwork is nearly ready. Once you've finished the work on your skin and done the implant, we'll schedule the drop.”

It took me another two weeks to accomplish everything, including doing a final review of the plan with Kivrin. Ned and Finch had insisted I use a partner for the actual retrieval and I'd chosen her. Kivrin was tough and resourceful and we knew each other well. If something went wrong, we might need to improvise, and that would be far easier with Kivrin than anyone else.

“Colin,” she said to me on the morning of the drop, “I'll be waiting for you at the drop on the seventeenth. Don't even think of trying the retrieval without me.”

“I know,” I said, smiling. “You'll tattle to Dunworthy.”

“Mr. Dunworthy will be the least of your worries,” she said darkly.

July 1944

I came through at my usual drop in St. Paul's Station. The first differences I noticed as soon as I exited the emergency staircase were the wooden escalators and the government posters pasted up everywhere. I'd walked past countless advertisements in the 1960s without really looking at them, but seeing war posters I'd only encountered before in books commanded my attention. I had to make an effort not to study them, reminding myself that they would have been commonplace and near-invisible to contemps.

I took the Underground to Bank, switched lines for Waterloo, and then caught a train for Twickenham. After a longish walk, I arrived at the motor pool.

“Fresh blood. And experienced! Excellent,” Captain Hayden said, as soon as I'd introduced myself as Corporal Colin Templeton. “We put in a request for another mechanic six weeks ago, after Edwards was blown up delivering an ambulance to Bethnal Green.”

I appreciated his welcome, but not the details of what had happened to my predecessor.

“Evans will show you round the shop,” he said. “Anything we can rescue from the wreckage is a victory for England. After serving overseas, you might appreciate an opportunity to work on motors without being under attack... most of the time.”

Evans proved to be a grizzled master sergeant who'd been repairing vehicles for the Army since the Great War. I liked him at once.

“Got your Blighty, did you?” he said to me, in a friendly manner. “You look like you're about to pop off. What was it? Arm? Leg? Lost your bollocks?”

“Right arm and leg,” I said. “Monte Cassino.”

“Ah, that was a bad business. Kind of posh for a mechanic, aren't you?” he asked, while showing me where I'd be working.

“I was sent down. Never much of one for school. Engines were always far more interesting than schoolmasters,” I said, silently begging Dunworthy's forgiveness for the slander.

“Isn't that the truth. Well, this little beauty will be your first assignment,” he said, indicating a banged-up jeep. “Silly bugger got drunk on leave and wrapped his motor around a tree in the dark. Let's see what you can do.”

Fortunately, what I could do for the jeep was a lot. After three days, I had it looking like desirable transport instead of a child's smashed-up toy. My repair job clearly met with Evans' approval and I was gradually given more and more challenging tasks.

As July slipped into August, I grew comfortable with post routine. I was one of six mechanics, including Evans, trying to cobble together living machines out of dead ones. We had a modest supply of new parts, mostly filters, belts, and hoses, but many of the parts we used were gleaned from the "treasure trove":  a series of sheds behind the workshop containing the hulks of vehicles deemed irreparable.

Some of the other mechanics had been badly wounded in combat, but a few were men who'd been deemed unfit for service. Most of them had been mechanics of some sort before the war, although Nutley claimed to have never worked on anything more sophisticated than an ancient farm tractor before being called up. Paxton was the son of garage owner and hoped to have his own garage after the war. Wolverton, a sickly-looking nineteen-year-old, wanted to become an engineer someday, and had an intuitive understanding of vehicles that Evans admired and the rest of us envied. Carstairs, a veteran, had been the best mate of Edwards, my predecessor, and was clearly still mourning the loss.

Evans wasn't a stickler for military decorum as long as the work got done, so we often worked without shirts during the hottest days of August. I was suddenly grateful for the hours I'd spent in Infirmary getting a suntan, as it would otherwise have been obvious I'd never worked outdoors with my sleeves rolled up, or in a vest and drill shorts. No one ever spoke openly about my scars, but I caught more than a few surreptitious glances.

Wolverton and I were wandering through the treasure trove one afternoon, looking for parts, when I saw it: an ambulance, apparently undamaged, with the word “Brixton” painted on the driver's door.

“What's the story with that one?” I said, gesturing at the ambulance.

“Engine seized up. That one's never going anywhere again,” he said.

I spent the next two days learning what I could about the Brixton ambulance, which wasn't much. Under the pretext of looking up the history of the truck I was repairing, I was able to learn the ambulance had been towed to Twickenham from Basingstoke the week before I arrived. I took a closer look at the ambulance on one of my trips to the treasure trove and saw that it bore a tag, written by Wolverton and signed off on by Evans, saying the engine was beyond repair. Considering Wolverton's talent and Evans' reluctance to write anything off as unusable, I despaired.

I reminded myself firmly that I had possible vehicles coming into the shop which I already knew how to repair. Painting a name on a door was trivial. In fact, Kiv would be bringing a stencil and paint with her to take care of that detail. I needed to forget the useless ambulance that had come from Brixton, and get back to the business of establishing myself as a reliable mechanic who was particularly good at repairing ambulances.

October 1944

By October, I felt as if I'd been at the post for years. The other mechanics had accepted me as one of them, including Evans. It wasn't unusual for me to take vehicles out for a test drive, and I'd even delivered two of them to nearby ambulance posts. I was ready for the retrieval to begin. All I needed was the damned vehicle.

When my first possible ambulance was towed into the shop, I was elbow-deep in another repair, and Carstairs got it. The second ambulance went to Wolverton while I was fixing a staff car.

By the ninth of October, I was becoming frantic and calculating my chances of “test driving” someone else's ambulance. Wolverton had already finished his and delivered it to Orpington, but Carstairs was struggling with his repair. I wanted to offer my help, but I'd seen that the other mechanics had been carefully not noticing his lackluster productivity and assumed I was supposed to, as well. Could I sneak the ambulance out one night and bring it back? How much repair work would I need to do on it and how could I do and undo it in secret?

On the tenth of October, I got the third ambulance, and nearly laughed with relief when I saw it. The frame was badly twisted, but the engine looked salvageable, and it was the same model of Daimler as the Brixton ambulance.

“We've got an intact Daimler in the treasure trove with a bad engine,” I said to Evans, who nodded at once. “Why not swap engines?”

He readily agreed, and I spent the next week overhauling the aging-but-not-yet-deceased “good” engine and tinkering with the transmission until I had the ambulance in good working order and the seventeenth had arrived.

Evans didn't even blink when I told him I planned to take it out for a lengthy test drive that evening.

“Meeting your girl?” he said, chuckling. “All right, then, you've earned it. Be good. And if you can't be good, be careful.”

If only he knew.

For months, I'd been wrestling with the decision of whether or not I should actually collect Kivrin at the drop before trying to retrieve Michael. I still didn't like the idea of taking her to a time and place where I knew rockets were falling. Let her scold until my ears dropped off.  Let Ned lecture me on teamwork and sticking to the plan.  Let Dunworthy, if he ever returned, assign enough essays to keep me busy until I was a grandfather.  None of that would matter, if Kivrin lived.

At the last minute, though, I took the turning that would lead me to the drop instead of Croydon. I did it not for my sake, or even Kivrin's, but for Michael's. For all I knew, his survival might depend on her presence.

It was foggy and completely dark by the time I got to the drop. I couldn't see Kivrin and had a bad moment when I thought I'd come to the wrong place or that the net had closed again, until she climbed into the ambulance, startling me.

“Didn't think you were coming,” she said with a grin. “If we hurry, we might get to the newspaper office before the V-1 and lure him away,” she said.

I gave her a skeptical look. “You know better.”

“Indeed I do,” she said. “Let's try, anyway.”

Of course, it didn't work. We had a puncture within five minutes, and it took an age to patch the tire in the dark.

By the time we set off again, Kivrin was checking her watch every two minutes. I was driving as fast as I dared, but we heard an explosion in the distance as we approached Croydon. “That was the V-1,” I said, and pressed down on the accelerator as I saw a fire down the street.

“That's an ambulance,” Kivrin said in surprise, looking at the fire as I pulled as close as possible to the wreckage of the newspaper office.

“Take the wheel,” I said. “Open the back. I'm going to fetch him myself before the others get here.”

I half-fell out the driver's door in my haste and picked my way across the debris. I know you're here, I thought. I know you're hurt. Let me help you.

I found him, and tried to make him understand what was happening, but we seemed to be having different conversations and time was precious. I scooped him up and stumbled back toward the ambulance. Kivrin, bless her, had opened the back and put a collapsible stretcher on the ground. I put Michael down, and Kivrin helped me lift the stretcher into the back and then slammed the door shut behind me before racing round to the driver's side.

“Everything you need's in the bag, just like we rehearsed,” she said, as she put the ambulance in gear.

I switched on a shuttered lantern that might pass as Twentieth Century if we were lucky and saw that Michael hadn't been lucky. Dear God, he was a mess. I got out the canister of sterifoam and sprayed his legs, hoping it would seal the wounds, and it did, but he'd already lost so much blood and had internal injuries as well. I managed to begin a plasma infusion, but had barely got it started when Kivrin said, “We're here.”

She helped me unload the stretcher, then said, “Take him through. I'll start cleaning up.”

There were tears on her cheeks, but she moved the ambulance away from the drop, unpacked another bag she'd brought with her, and began methodically scattering handfuls of compressed sponges over the blood in the back of the ambulance.

I was in tears, too, waiting for the drop to open, and willing Michael to hang on just a little longer. He was still struggling to tell me something, but he brought up more blood than speech.

Michael did hang on a little longer, but not long enough.

December 2067

Michael died in my arms, moments after we came through. I stood there, frozen by grief and denial, until some med techs took Michael away from me. Ned eased me away from the net while the techs verified that it was too late.

I was distantly aware that the whole team was there, except Kivrin. Verity came over and embraced me, despite my bloodied clothing, while Ned tersely said, “Team two. Please proceed.”

I turned slightly and saw Kat and Phoebe, dressed as FANYs and carrying large duffels, step into the net and disappear. Clean up. They'd trained for months to assist a retrieval and now they were cleaning up a dead man's blood, to erase the evidence of my failure.

Within minutes, Kivrin was back, saying to no one in particular, “They're nearly done.” I noticed that she'd brought both bags back with her, and that both of them seemed full. She'd been able to return with the sponges she'd used to begin cleaning the ambulance. Michael's blood was an nonsignificant object.

But not Michael himself, even in death. “We spoke,” I said, as Kivrin came up to me, and suddenly everyone's attention was focused on me. “Polly and Merope are together, and he told me where they were when he left them in January 1941.”

Chapter Text

January 2068

We had a memorial service for Michael on New Year's Day. I thought about the superstition which holds that one spends the year repeating the things one does on New Year's Day and hoped there was no truth to it. I couldn't bear to spend the year burying dead historians.

I attended the service in body but not in mind. After five days, I was still turning over the retrieval in my head, trying to calculate what we might have done differently and coming up with no answers. Kivrin sat beside me and held my hand, while I half-listened to the eulogy, feeling that I was the one who'd died.

Michael's family came, of course, and Polly's mother. Merope's father, the last of her family, had died the previous year, not knowing that his daughter was still alive and hoping for rescue in 1941.

I thought of Merope and Polly that way, as being frozen in a moment of anticipation. I had to. Losing Michael had been horrible enough. I'd once sworn not to give up on the historians until I saw their bodies with my own eyes. I wondered now if I'd cursed myself and them with that histrionic declaration.

At the reception after the service, I spoke to Michael's family. I felt I should, although I didn't want to. Almost the first thing his mother said to me was, “You mustn't blame yourself,” which was impossible for me not to do.

“If we'd been quicker—” I said.

“I'm a doctor, dear,” she said, surprising me. I hadn't remembered that. I'd always thought of her as Michael's mum, not thinking about the life she had outside that role. “I've seen the autopsy report. The damage... was simply too great.”

“We tried to get to him before that evening,” I said, and we had, although we'd feared from the start we'd be unable to retrieve Michael before he was injured. During the long months I'd spent prepping for the retrieval, we'd tried sending various historians to lounge about near the Weekly Shopper and the Clarion Call, two newspapers Ernest had frequently used, but the net had refused to open most of the time. We'd managed to send Verity through on the seventeenth to intercept Michael at the Clarion Call, but she'd ended up in Scotland and didn't reach Croydon until the twentieth.  After two other attempts resulted in badly injured historians who'd been confined to hospital on the seventeenth, we'd stopped trying to reach Michael before the attack. I'd worried for months that the net wouldn't open for my retrieval drop, but it had.  I'd tried sending Michael letters from Twickenham, asking whether he was the same Ernest Worthing who'd gone to school with me, but the letters had all been returned, damaged and marked as undeliverable.

She nodded sympathetically. “Mr. Finch told us.”

It felt odd that she was trying to comfort me. Perhaps as a doctor, she'd had to dole out bad news often enough that it was second nature to her.  “He spoke to me,” I blurted out, although I hadn't been sure I was going to mention that part. “He told us where the others are. And he did important work for British Intelligence.”

“I'd like to hear more about that,” said Michael's father, so I began telling them about Ernest Worthing and the things he'd done for Fortitude South, including some of the amusing letters to the editor he'd written to mislead the Germans into believing the invasion target was Calais. Returning to the familiar ground of my research made it easier to talk about Michael, because I could remember him as living, vital, trying to help others.

It was going quite well, until they turned aside to speak to Ned, and I caught sight of Polly's mother, who'd been eavesdropping on the conversation.

“We're going to do our best to find the others,” I assured her.

“I know. Love conquers all,” she said, leaving me dumbstruck. She saw my reaction and softly said, “You've always been in love with her, haven't you?”

“Almost from the first moment I saw her,” I admitted, then added hastily, “but that doesn't mean the others aren't important, too.”

“Of course not, dear,” she said, “but there's nothing like a little incentive.” She smiled at me with a teasing expression that reminded me so much of Polly it was painful.

Ned came over to speak to Polly's mother and the moment passed, but I stood there feeling a shameful sort of hope. Helen hadn't dismissed me as a fool with a childish crush on her daughter. Perhaps Polly would feel the same way, and all I had to do was bring her home safely.

Love conquers all, she'd said. Except that it didn't. I'd come to love Michael in a platonic way, as historians sometimes do when immersed in their research, and that hadn't saved him.

Lady Schrapnell interrupted my train of thought. “I want to thank you for your efforts in locating and retrieving Michael Davies,” she said.

I would have expected a reprimand from her. I was so surprised that I gracelessly said, “We failed.”

“If you'd done nothing, he'd still be dead,” she insisted. “My oldest son was killed by a pinpoint during the terrorist years,” she said, surprising me. “To have a child simply vanish completely... is a very difficult thing for a parent to live with. It took me months to accept that Daniel was truly gone. To have a body to bury... is a comfort, and a success, even if it doesn't seem that way to you.”

She walked away before I had a chance to respond, as if she'd embarrassed herself by revealing so much of her feelings. I'd never thought of her as a mother, just as I'd never thought of Michael's mum as a doctor. How much was I failing to notice about the people I saw every day?

“Did you know that Lady Schrapnell had a son?” I asked Kivrin, who'd been hovering at my elbow all day.

“Correction, she's had at least two sons,” Kivrin said. “And no, I didn't know, and would prefer not to think about it too closely. The idea that someone would choose to reproduce with Lady Schrapnell taxes the imagination.”

“I would have said it freezes the blood,” Verity chimed in. She, too, had been near my side most of the day.

“You're trying to make me smile,” I said, and could feel a grin beginning at the corners of my mouth.

“True,” Verity said. “I think you should do it before I'm forced to engage in speculation about Lady Schrapnell's romantic encounters and scar us all for life.”

At that, I did smile, and wondered if Michael would have smiled, too. Given some of the letters he'd written, I rather thought so.

We hadn't held a meeting of the retrieval team immediately after Michael's death. Ned had put it off, to give us a chance to get over the initial shock. The day after the memorial service, we began planning again.

Before Verity and Ned arrived, bearing armfuls of takeaway for everyone, I'd cleared the boards and reconstructed the ones for Polly, Merope, and Mr. Dunworthy. I'd left Michael's board blank, and put it to one side. We might need it again someday, to plan a new retrieval, which I hoped would be more successful.

“All right,” Ned said, after everyone had had a chance to tuck in, “let's review where we stand. Ambulance cleaned and abandoned near Bethnal Green, and your post,” he said, gesturing to me, “informed of your untimely death and the ambulance's destruction, courtesy of Finch's magical paperwork. Anything else? All materiel sent through for the retrieval accounted for?”

“Yes,” Finch said. “I personally double-checked the contents of the returned bags against the manifest.”

Christ. No wonder Kivrin had been in such a hurry to get me out of the lab. I'd thought she'd been trying to spare me the spectacle of Michael's corpse. I should have realized that someone would have to unpack the bags and tick off the contents against a list, item by item. She hadn't wanted me to see all the blood-soaked sponges.

“Very well,” Ned said, and I saw for the first time how much Michael's loss had aged him. Why had I been self-centered enough to imagine that only I felt responsible?

“Next,” Kivrin said, turning to me. “Tell us again exactly what Michael said to you.”

I did, and we began circling items on the blackboards and adding notes.

“So there are things we've speculated about that we now know to be facts,” Ned said. “Polly and Merope are together, and in Kensington. Both of them are working as shopgirls at Townsend Brothers. They live in a boardinghouse on Cardle Street and shelter at night in Notting Hill Gate.”

“We know that was true in January 1941,” I said. “We still can't get there.”

“What's the latest status on the map?” Ned asked, turning to Badri.

“December 1943,” Badri said.

December 1943. I could go through and warn Polly, I thought, even as I knew that wouldn't work. I'd tried and failed to contact her in 1944. “There's something I've forgotten,” I said. “According to Michael, Polly was there in Croydon. She must have come in the ambulance that was hit by a rocket, and either she or her partner put the tourniquets on Michael before being injured themselves.”

“Polly was there? We were so close,” Verity said bleakly.

“Yes,” I said, and was glad I hadn't remembered it when I'd been talking to Polly's mum.

Badri said, “If you'd retrieved her then, she never would have gone to 1940. It was never possible.”

“True,” Ned said. “Very well, we have a firm location for Polly and Merope. If we can't get to 1941, let's see if we can find them in 1943. The rest of 1943 will likely open to us long before 1941.” He hesitated before saying, “We'll need to provide an update at the conference. If word of the retrieval hasn't leaked already, it will soon.”

“I'll go,” I said, although I hadn't given the time travel conference a thought. It had still been several months off when I'd left for 1944.

“Are you sure?” Ned said. Apparently, Verity wasn't the only historian in the Henry household who'd been keeping an eye on my reaction to Michael's death.

“Yes,” I said. “It was my drop, and mostly my research. It's my responsibility.”

March 2068

The time travel conference felt different this year than it had the last time I'd attended. In 2065, when the conference had been in London, I'd been in a city I knew well, surrounded by a sizeable flock of Oxford historians. Only Ned and I had made the trip to Buenos Aires. I tried to convince myself that it was the journey that had worn me out, but it was the reason I'd come that weighed me down.

I was surprised by the number of theorists and historians who welcomed me with friendly smiles and asked how the search was coming along without a hint of reproach in their voices. I'd expected superior smiles at best, and open scorn of my naive plan to retrieve the missing historians at worst.

It wasn't like that at all. Our session had mercifully been scheduled for the second afternoon of the conference, late enough in the conference that all the attendees would have arrived, but early enough that I wouldn't have to spend the whole week dreading it.

Ned began the session by announcing Michael's death. I'd begun to think that scarcely anyone knew about it, which was why I'd been treated so well, but it was obvious from the audience's reaction that the news of the failed retrieval had spread far and wide.

As I began my presentation, I realized they hadn't come out of ignorance, or to gloat. They simply wanted to know what had happened, and what we intended to do next. Bolstered by that revelation, I told them how I'd located Michael, what we'd tried to do to get him out, and what he'd told me.

As the question-and-answer part of our session progressed, I discovered they hadn't known that Michael had spoken to me. I was surprised by how much importance the temporal theorists attached to the handful of facts that Michael had given to me before his death. All of us in Oxford had been so affected by Michael's death and our near-miss with Polly that we hadn't considered the theoretical implications of having our long-held guesses confirmed. As the session broke up, a handful of theorists stayed behind to have a spirited debate about the meaning of it all.

“Information left the closure,” one of them said, greatly excited, “Which means that Ishiwaka's theory—”

“Is wrong again,” Ishiwaka himself said, in amusement. He turned to me and said, “Would you like me to claim it's categorically impossible to retrieve the other historians? It might result in your having them home by breakfast.”

“You weren't wrong,” said another theorist. “Davies is dead. Likely the same thing's already happened to the others.”

I'd often found it curious that many of the temporal theorists who backed Ishiwaka's theories seemed to do so far more vigorously than Ishiwaka himself. I'd mentioned it to Ned once and he'd slyly said, “When one has to work hard to come by ideas, I suppose it's natural to hold them more tightly. Prove Ishiwaka wrong and he'll go back to the blackboard, while his supporters will attack you. He must tire of being defended.”

Indeed, Ishiwaka did appear to be mildly put out by the theorists who most staunchly insisted that this latest development meant nothing. “It means something,” he said. “I just don't know what.” Turning to me, he said, “Come; join me for dinner. You as well, Ned.”

A few of his hangers-on made as if to join us, but Ishiwaka brushed them off politely, saying, “Tomorrow, tomorrow. There's plenty of time to theorize before Friday.”

Once again, we let Ishiwaka pick the restaurant. It was tiny and a good distance away from the conference center, and Ishiwaka had made a reservation for us that morning.

“The concierge at my hotel suggested this as an out-of-the-way spot to get a good meal,” Ishiwaka said, as we stepped inside. After we ordered, he said, “I was hoping to speak to you privately. I'd heard about Davies, of course. I'd like a chance to pick your brains without the little parrots twittering around us. Tell me everything all over again.”

I did, including the bit about barely missing Polly.

“And Davies said nothing to you about Dunworthy?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“And what about the post-1995 closure?” he asked. “Has there been any progress? At all?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“Hmm,” he said. “Perhaps I should turn my attention in that direction.” He thought for a bit, and then said, “You realize, as some of my parrots have failed to do, that the equations are not laws. They are mathematical models, meant to capture observed reality. When the observations change, the model must adapt.”

“How much?” I said.

“Not as much as you would like, I'm afraid,” he said. “Your inability to reach Davies before the rocket attack, especially the diversion of the historian to Scotland, is a strong indication that the continuum will not repair itself without cost. I am sorry. Equations are indifferent to human suffering. That does not mean their creators are.”

“How much... cost?” Ned asked.

Ishiwaka regarded us soberly and said, “Gentlemen, I believe you'll know the answer to that question long before I do.”

September 2068

By the beginning of September, I'd spent months searching archives for any clue about Polly's and Merope's whereabouts in 1943. I'd come to believe that the more I discovered, the more the closure opened, but we seemed to have reached an impasse. Even the inverse maps weren't improving, which meant the temporal maps wouldn't be changing any time soon. Where else could I look?

Once again, I toyed with the idea of digging into the post-1995 closure. I'd considered it before, but had always chosen to focus on the area where our historians were trapped. After spending so many months accomplishing nothing, I felt that it was time to try something else, but didn't know where to begin. I thought to myself that the person who might be able to guess what I should be looking for wasn't here... and then I remembered the diaries.

“Kivrin, I want to see Dunworthy's diaries,” I told her, the next time I was home for the weekend.

“After all these years?” she said. “Why?”

“I'm getting nowhere with the archives,” I said. “Perhaps if I peel up a corner of what happened after 1995, the maps will change again. There must be some detail in his diaries that will help us.”

“But how will you recognize that detail when you see it? And how will it help?” she said skeptically.

“Details do matter,” I said. “Think about the Brixton ambulance.”

“Colin, we spent months looking for that ambulance and in the end, it didn't matter. The ambulance came to you, more or less. We could have sent you to Twickenham not knowing the first thing about Brixton and you still would have got the ambulance.”

“Would I?” I said. “There were hundreds of vehicles there. I only noticed it because of the word 'Brixton'.”

“Surely Evans kept records,” she said.

“Yes, he did,” I admitted, “but when one looks at a smashed-up ambulance with an elderly engine, 'I wonder if we have another ambulance just like this in the sheds?' isn't the first thought that comes to mind. What if I hadn't looked?”

“Not everything we get a glimpse of is something we need to know,” Kivrin argued.

“Not everything we need to know is something we get a glimpse of, either. Come on, Kiv, where's the harm in trying? I'm due to spend a week in Oxford, anyway, to stave off time lag.”

“Very well,” she said, and began unearthing boxes from the back of a closet. “Here's the index,” she said, handing me a small booklet.

“Index?” I echoed. “Kivrin, you indexed his diary entries? When?”

“During my first sabbatical. Your second year as an undergraduate,” she said, as if I should have guessed.

“So... you were still tutoring me, and qualifying for Twentieth Century drops, and also indexing all these diaries? When did you sleep?”

She grinned at me. “How do you think I became so accomplished at recognizing the signs of overwork in you? Besides, I'd been learning the Twentieth Century stuff bit by bit over the years, thanks to Dunworthy. It's not as if I started completely from scratch. And not having any lectures to prepare for was a tremendous help. Anyway, if you want to find someone in the diaries, it's all listed in the index. You can write in it, if you like; this is just a printed copy of something I have online. Let me draw your attention to the numerous entries listed under, 'Templer, Colin, reprimanded for'.”

“You didn't,” I said, but flipping quickly through the booklet, I could see she had.

“Just be glad I didn't have time to write an appendix with footnotes,” she said. “The stories I could tell about you...”

“I know a few stories about you, as well,” I said.

“Hmm. Mutually assured humiliation,” she said. “Always a sound basis for a healthy sibling relationship.”

I took the booklet and a box of diaries away with me. Where to begin? I didn't care to revisit my youthful misdemeanors, as I remembered many of them more clearly than I would have liked. Who else had Dunworthy known?

Nearly everyone, it seemed, flipping through the index. I marveled again at Kivrin's energy. Perhaps I should look for temporal theorists? Yes; Ishiwaka's name was there, as were the names of some of his parrots.

I spent the next five days skipping back and forth through the diaries, reading about Dunworthy's interactions with and opinions of various theorists, but nothing leapt off the page and announced its significance to me.

By the time I'd checked all the temporal theorists and pioneers of time travel and Wendy Armitage, I'd begun to wonder if I'd been looking for something too obvious. When we'd been planning Michael's retrieval, I'd looked for Brixton in London when I should have been considering the Brixton in Devon. Who or what in this index looked unlikely?

I was flipping through the index late one evening when I saw the name, “Gaddson, Lucretia,” and thought to myself that no one could be more unlikely than Mrs. Gaddson.

The first two entries were brief complaints from the fall of 2054. Mrs. Gaddson had been visiting Balliol constantly, worried about the health and treatment of her son, William. The third entry was from February 2055. I flipped to the relevant page, prepared to find another complaint about Mrs. Gaddson. I hadn't expected to see my own mother discussed.

22 February 2055. A belated Christmas miracle has been visited upon us. Mrs. Gaddson has finally returned to Manchester, and long may she remain there. Am still amazed she never discovered William kissing one woman or another during her time here, as I rarely encounter William without a girl in his arms. I'm not sure how that will play out when it comes time for him to do his practicum, but he'll never reach his practicum unless he spends more time working and less time wooing.

I'm concerned by the continued silence from Deirdre Templer. She knows Colin followed me through the net to 1349. I'd expected some sort of angry reaction from her by now, possibly even the threat of a lawsuit, but she's done nothing. I'd assumed Mary was exaggerating when she said her niece lacks maternal instincts, but Mrs. Templer's seeming indifference to how Colin spent his holiday troubles me greatly. I'm not sure what can be done about it, though, as Colin is Mary's nephew, not mine, more's the pity. Perhaps if Mary were still alive, we could have worked out an arrangement for Colin to spend more time in Oxford.

I set the diary down, and put out the light, suddenly not wanting to read any further that night. As a twelve-year-old, I'd glossed over my mother's neglect, making excuses for the late Christmas presents, pretending it was normal for her not to mind that I'd spent my holiday with a stranger in the middle of an epidemic and had time-traveled to the Black Death. As an adult, I could admit that my mother, while not intentionally cruel, had never been very good at loving me, but it was still painful to be reminded that I hadn't been a priority to her. Only with Great-aunt Mary and Mr. Dunworthy had I truly felt an adult was taking care of me.

Great-aunt Mary. She must have been born around 1995. Was she the thing I was supposed to be looking for?

I decided to stay on another week in Oxford, reading up on the diary entries about Great-aunt Mary. She and Mr. Dunworthy had been friends for decades, so there were scores, perhaps hundreds of entries, but none of them caught my eye. At a loss, I was considering whether I should move on to another topic or return to archival research when Ned called me into his office.

“What have you been researching lately?” he said curiously.

Somewhat shamefacedly, I admitted I'd been reading Dunworthy's diaries. “I realize they don't have a direct impact on the closure, but—”

“Perhaps they do,” Ned said. “Badri's just given me the latest inverse map. The war's nearly open all the way back to mid-March of 1941.”

“What?” I said, and he showed me.

“I've asked Badri and Linna to run a new temporal map and some unmanneds,” he said. “Whatever you did, it worked, or something did.”

“What about post-1995?” I asked. “That's mostly what I've been focusing on.”

“A small change, but not much,” he said. “The inverse map shows some areas of grey now, but they're extremely dark.”

“I don't know... I can't imagine anything I could have done that would have caused that,” I said. “This must be a coincidence.”

“Whatever it is, I think you should prep for a drop to 1941,” he said. “It looks like you'll be able to get there fairly soon.”

I went back to my rooms, pulled out the blackboard that had been Michael's, and wrote down the name of every person I'd looked up in Dunworthy's diaries, including Mrs. Gaddson. After a moment's hesitation, I added my mother's name, too. The only person on the list who'd been alive during the World War II closure was Wendy Armitage, so I put an asterisk next to her name.

That done, I began preparing for a 1941 drop.

December 2068

It took a good deal longer for March 1941 to actually open than I'd thought. I spent so much time cramming for a drop during the week after my meeting with Ned that Kivrin teased me about giving me an actual bed-time.

“I'm not five,” I protested angrily. “Dunworthy didn't give me a bed-time, even when I was twelve.”

Thinking back on it, he probably had. He'd never announced a set time to me, but had consistently given me a gentle nudge toward bed around the same time each evening. He'd rarely made demands or rules about anything not related to my personal safety, perhaps sensing my instinctive aversion to authority. Although he'd never hesitated to address misbehavior, he'd mostly handed out expectations instead of threats. Clever man, as I'd been far more concerned about his disapproval than his punishments.

“Colin, you won't be cleared for a drop if you're sleep-deprived, and you know it,” Kivrin said. “Of course, Ned could have someone else do the retrieval.”

I grumbled at her, but cut back on my work schedule.

By the end of December, I'd reviewed recent events for March 1941, including which major streets, landmarks, and tube stations had been bombed between January and April. I'd come close to memorizing the contemp map of London, and was well-versed in how to get from St. Paul's Station to Townsend Brothers, Cardle Street, and Notting Hill Gate Station. I'd reviewed the rationing regulations for the time, and double-checked my costume and papers for seeming authenticity.

I was becoming anxious about the delay. The inverse map for March 1941 had been light grey for months. Surely the temporal map would open soon?

I reached my lowest point at Christmas, which had been a trying time for me ever since Dunworthy had left. On Christmas Eve morning, I broke a long-held self-imposed rule and pulled out the diary where Dunworthy should have recorded his thoughts about that first Christmas he and I had spent together. I was curious about his initial impressions of me.

He'd written nothing at all that Christmas. I should have expected as much. Between the influenza outbreak, Kivrin's practicum, bell-ringers, Mrs. Gaddson, and me, he'd had no time for diary entries. More disheartening than the absence of any entries about me was the realization that I'd only gone looking because a part of me was now convinced that Dunworthy was dead. I never would have deliberately looked for entries about myself if he were alive because it felt too personal, somehow.  Even reading the things he'd written about people I scarcely knew had felt odd, although I could often imagine his voice while reading his words, which had been strangely comforting.

I attended the Henrys' party without any enthusiasm, and was surprised to find myself enjoying pulling early Christmas crackers with James and Terence, who were excited to be up far past their usual bed-time.

“They'll sleep like the dead when we finally put them down,” Ned confided to me, after James and Terence had deserted me in favor of pouncing on their Auntie Kiv. “Which is Verity's plan. Last year, Terence nearly caught me putting out the presents. James is convinced Father Christmas uses time travel and wants me to check the logs in the lab.”

Cyril, who'd been following the guests around with a hopeful expression, came and settled at my side.

“No treats for you, my lad,” I said to him, then thought, and none for me, either.

Three days later, the map opened all the way back to mid-March 1941.

Badri and Ned were reluctant to send me through, as the average slippage on the unmanneds was measured in hours instead of minutes. They were concerned that 1941 might close again, trapping me, but the inverse map gave no indication of it.

“That's not the only difficulty,” Ned told me, when I pressed for permission to do the drop. “What happens if you come through after the trains have stopped?”

“I'll be dressed as an ARP warden," I said. "Whoever's guarding the station exit will let me pass.”

“That will work if you get there while the trains are running or shortly after they've stopped,” he replied. “What if you come through two hours after they've stopped? The guard's going to wonder what you've been doing in the station for hours when you're supposed to be at your post.”

“I could be working the late shift, from one to seven am, and sleeping in the shelter.” At Ned's skeptical look, I acknowledged the unlikelihood of getting much sleep in an Underground shelter before the trains stopped and admitted, “I'd have to spend the night in the emergency staircase. I'll need extremely warm clothing. It'll be freezing in there.”

After a prolonged debate which included making contingency plans in case I got stuck in 1941, Ned authorized the drop.

March 1941

Ned had been right to worry that I'd arrive at night, because I did. That wouldn't have been so bad if I'd actually been on the emergency staircase.

I came through outdoors, in a narrow alley. I'd scarcely had time to realize I was in the wrong place before a deafening crump sounded nearby.

Where was I? When was I? What should I do now?

The night was very cold, but not as dark as it should have been. Searchlights raked what I could see of the sky and parachute flares illuminated targets for the bombers. Small wonder no one had noticed the shimmer of the net opening.

I'd read about air raids, but the historical accounts had failed to convey how overwhelming the noise could be. The drone of the bombers alone would have been menacing, but the sound of constant explosions was nerve-shredding, even without the knowledge of how much damage was being done. My instinctive reaction was to hide, to take up as small a space as possible, and hope the drop reopened as soon as Badri got a fix.

An explosion that sounded as if it were in the next street convinced me that waiting for Badri could be a deadly mistake. I stumbled out of the alley into a larger street, looking for a shelter. I glanced up and saw that the sky was full of bombers. Surely there hadn't been that many planes in all of Germany.

Ahead of me, I saw wharves, and realized I was likely in London, on the river. It's the nineteenth, I thought in horror, as I saw bombs falling on warehouses. The East End had been targeted repeatedly throughout the Blitz, but one of the worst nights had been March nineteenth, when a landmine had exploded next to a surface shelter in a warehouse, killing dozens and wounding many more. Going to a shelter might actually be more dangerous than staying outdoors. Let it be some other night. I don't want to witness this, I thought, as I huddled in a doorway waiting for the worst to pass.

I'd read John Bartholomew's account of having served on the fire watch at St. Paul's. At one point, he'd said that air raids had a terrible beauty. Either he'd been badly time-lagged or raids were less picturesque on the ground than on the roofs of St. Paul's. There was an enormous blast that sounded as if it were on top of me, and I felt things hit me in the back, hard. After a minute, I risked untucking my body for a quick look at the street and saw that buildings across the street just down the road had collapsed into a heap.

The sound of planes overhead seemed to be lessening, or had my hearing been affected by that last explosion? After another minute, I was sure that the explosions were decreasing and moving farther off. A few minutes after that, the bombing stopped.

I stood, brushing debris off myself. There were pieces of brick at my feet. That must have been what struck me. I stretched, testing for a broken rib, but felt nothing more than the twinge of developing bruises.

“Oi! You there!” someone called, running over to me. “You should be... oh.”

It was an ARP warden, a real one, who'd been on the verge of telling me off for being outdoors before he saw my armband and helmet.

“I couldn't reach my post,” I explained, and he accepted that at face value. It was standard procedure for an ARP warden to assist another post if a raid began before he could reach his assigned area. Wardens were expected to show courage and presence of mind. I should have had the presence of mind to listen to Ned and Badri and stay in Oxford, but it was far too late for that.

“Come along, then, there's work to be done,” he said, and we hurried to a collapsed warehouse where other rescuers were gathering. Half the building seemed to have fallen into the river.

This is it, I thought. This must be the shelter where so many died. The all clear sounded as I began looking for survivors.

“They'll be back,” one of the rescuers said to me. “Here, help me lift this.”

An indeterminate amount of time passed as we worked through the wreckage, uncovering the living and the dead. Ambulances arrived, and we began loading survivors, sometimes two to a stretcher, one on top of the other, because there were so few stretchers and so very many wounded. I was almost glad when the bombers returned, as they drowned out the sounds of moaning and screaming and rescue workers shouting to one another.

I cut my left hand on something while trying to extricate a ten-year-old girl from the wreckage. “Don't leave me, don't leave me,” she pleaded over and over, eyes stretched wide with fright.

“I won't,” I promised, but I don't think she heard me, because she went on saying it. It was only after I finally freed her that I realized she hadn't been speaking to me at all: she was lying next to a dead man who looked the right age to be her father.

I grew weary from the endless stooping and lifting, and wondered how some of the other rescuers managed it, as a few of them looked to be grandfathers. One of the wardens was a woman as tiny as Kivrin, and just as indomitable in spirit.

“You should get that seen to,” she said, gesturing at the cut hand. I'd hastily wrapped a handkerchief around my glove to staunch the worst of the bleeding, but it would likely need to be sealed. Stitched. Cuts in 1941 were stitched. Could it wait until I got back to Oxford?

She must have seen me hesitating, because she said, “It needs to be taken care of straight away. You don't want it to get infected. Go on now, you're done for the night, most of the next shift's already here. Poplar Hospital's closest,” she said, pointing north.

Oh, yes, she was very much like Kiv. Thanks to my prep, I knew where Poplar Hospital was. I made my way there and got my hand stitched by a nursing sister, as all the doctors were occupied with more serious cases. I tried not to stare too obviously while she was doing it. I'd learned how to stitch wounds as part of my training, but had never seen it done on a living person.

“This will leave quite a scar, I'm afraid,” she said as she worked.

“I'll add it to the collection."

The sister looked at me quizzically.

“Dunkirk,” I said. “You should see me without trousers.”

“Is that a line of chat?” she said, with a smile quirking the corners of her mouth.

“What? No,” I stammered. “I didn't mean it that way. I've got an impressively ugly shrapnel wound on my right leg. I do apologize.”

“It's all right,” she said, as she finished the last stitch. “Be sure to keep the wound clean and dry. Take this,” she said, handing me a slip of paper, “to the dispensary. They'll give you some ointment to prevent infection.”

“Thank you,” I said, but she wasn't finished.

“Come back in a week, and I'll take out the stitches. I might even have a look at that scar,” she said with a wink.

Oh dear. Most of the young men she knew must be overseas, if she were that intrigued by an ARP warden who'd turned up covered in dirt and blood. I ducked into a loo, suddenly conscious of my appearance. I'd wanted to look my best for Polly, but that was a lost hope now. There was blood on my coat and I was filthy. I did my best at washing my face one-handed, but that was all I could manage under the circumstances.

I skipped the dispensary, as I should be back in Oxford in a matter of hours. I caught sight of a clock on my way out. I felt as if I'd been at the warehouse for days, but it was only a little past two in the morning. It was too early for the buses or trains to be running, and far too early to turn up at Cardle Street. Where should I go?

I wandered west in an indecisive manner, and walked for a long time, numbly replaying the events of the night in my head. I didn't realize how far I'd traveled until I saw the dome of St. Paul's. I decided to check the drop that Dunworthy had used while I was here, to see if it had been blocked in some way.

I slipped into the cathedral and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, then eased my way down a side aisle, wishing I'd thought to memorize the floorplan for St. Paul's. I'd been here before, several times, but in the near-total darkness, distances were hard to judge and I had to be careful not to trip over incidentals like sand buckets.

The bombers were returning for another go. The light from flares briefly lit the cathedral enough for me to see that I was passing the reproduction of The Light of the World. I'd seen the real thing, of course, in the 1970s. I paused for a moment to look at it, thinking that Christ looked so very tired, yet there was something hopeful around the eyes suggesting that the closed door would finally be flung open. Perhaps I was projecting my own weariness and optimism onto it.

I checked the site of Dunworthy's drop, found it intact and accessible, and decided to wait in a side chapel until dawn. If someone discovered me, I'd pretend that I'd come in to warm up for a few minutes. At a stretch, I could claim I'd fallen asleep on my way home from a hard shift, which was more or less the truth.

I did fall asleep, although I hadn't meant to, and was woken by the sound of footsteps on one of the staircases. The sun was rising. Voices became distinct as I scrambled to my feet. I needed to get out before the fire watch saw me.

I didn't make it. I'd no sooner left the chapel than two tired-looking men came into view. They stopped at the sight of me.

“I was passing by and came in to get out of the wind,” I said.

“Aye, it was a beast of a night,” one of them said. “Fancy a cuppa?”

“No, I'd better get off home and check on my Da,” I said. “He takes on so when I'm late. Ever since I caught a Blighty at Dunkirk, he's convinced one of the bombs will get me.”

I saw their glances shift from my face to my body, resting briefly on my bandaged hand. I'd taken off my blood-soaked glove at the hospital. What had I done with it afterwards?

“Here's hoping for a quiet night tonight,” I said in farewell.

“Chance'd be a fine thing,” one of them said.

I turned, deliberately limping as I made my way to the door. The limp was only partly feigned. The cold had seeped into my bones, especially my bad leg.

Don't look back, I thought. Don't hurry. You're just a wounded veteran who's been walking around on his bad leg in the cold. Limp slowly.

I made it outside without being accosted by suspicious fire watchers. With the immediate danger of discovery past, I remembered why I was here. Today was the day I was going to bring Polly home at last. My pace quickened as I wondered how she'd react to a Colin who was her age and a qualified historian, to someone who was her equal rather than an overeager puppy trailing after her. Would she want me?

Drowsy-looking shelterers were streaming out of St. Paul's Station as I entered it. Badri had promised to try doing a retrieval from St. Paul's itself if anything went wrong with the staircase drop. I hoped that wouldn't be necessary, as encountering the fire watch a second time might prove awkward. I didn't think they'd believe I'd gone home to discover that my elderly Da was serving pretty girls for breakfast.

I caught a train going west and tried to think of something clever to say when I saw Polly. In books and vids, characters always seem to have devastating quips at their fingertips, but all I could think of was, “I'm here to take you home,” which was depressingly mundane. Almost nine years of searching, and I'd spent no time at all developing an entrance line. Apparently, I hadn't become as irresistibly charming as I'd intended.

I brushed those thoughts aside as I reached Notting Hill Gate. Bringing Polly and Merope home would be clever enough. I didn't need to sound like a character out of a West End play.

There were still shelterers gathering up their things, so I looked about eagerly as I got off the train, but saw no sign of Polly. She was likely at the boardinghouse, having breakfast or dressing for work. I wondered if Mrs. Rickett disapproved of gentleman visitors calling at breakfast-time and then realized it didn't matter; Polly and Merope would be leaving with me and Mrs. Rickett could like it or lump it. Thinking of Mrs. Rickett, I began rehearsing my “Uncle James is very ill and I've been sent to fetch you home” speech.

I made my way toward Cardle Street without hesitation. I'd studied the map often enough, and had walked many of these streets on occasion during the years since my practicum. Always, I'd been imagining I could take a sideways step back in time and be near Polly. No need for imagination now.

I strode past some rubble, looking at street numbers, and then realized I'd passed number 14. I turned back and retraced my steps with foreboding.

There was nothing but a heap of bricks, plaster, and splintered wood at number 14. Mrs. Rickett's boardinghouse had been destroyed.

Chapter Text

March 1941

I stood on the pavement in the bitter cold, staring at the wreckage of the house where Polly was supposed to have been safe. Why hadn't I researched addresses up through the end of the Blitz?

This couldn't be number 14. I frantically checked the numbers on the remaining buildings, hoping that Cardle Street had an unconventional numbering system, even though I knew it didn't. I wanted to start sifting through the rubble right then with my bare hands, but I could see this destruction wasn't recent. There was no fire, and no ARP warden to search for survivors or tell me to clear off. The rubble had been tidied in on itself, to clear the street and sidewalk of dangerous debris. This had happened days, perhaps weeks, ago.

Now what?

All right, so Polly and Merope have been bombed out, I thought, taking a firm grip on my rising panic. They would have been in a shelter, not here, during the bombing. Notting Hill Gate was intact, so they should be safe somewhere in London. All I needed to do was go to Townsend Brothers after it opened.

I knocked on the doors of a few neighboring houses before finding an elderly woman at home.

“That?” she said, nodding toward the remnants of number 14. “Happened a month ago, near enough.”

“Was anyone at home?” I asked, praying the answer would be no.

“Mrs. Rickett, who owned the place, and good riddance to the old cat, although I shouldn't speak ill of the dead. Some of the boarders, I think, although I'm not sure which ones. I didn't speak to Mrs. Rickett often enough to know much about her boarders. You might try number 19. Mrs. Parker got along with Mrs. Rickett well enough, although I can't say how.”

Mrs. Parker didn't know who'd been killed, either. “Mrs. Rickett and two of her boarders. I don't remember their names, but they never liked going to shelters. After St. George's was destroyed, they said it was proof they'd been right all along about staying at home.”

“St. George's? There used to be a shelter there? Was anyone killed when it was damaged?” I asked urgently.

She looked a bit confused by the change of subject, but answered, “It was a parachute mine. They evacuated all the shelterers in time, but some firemen, a warden, and the bomb disposal squad were all killed when the mine went off.”

“Thank you,” I said, and left in better spirits than I'd arrived in. I now realized Polly must have sheltered at St. George's for a time, and someone who knew that had mistakenly reported her death. She's alive, I told myself. She never would have risked staying at home during a raid. Dunworthy had lectured her about air raids so much that she'd complained to me about it. Just as Kat had complained about Wilkens, and I complained about Ned and Kivrin. I needed to remember that the next time I became annoyed by their caution.

I'd been in 1941 for hours without so much as a cup of tea. I decided to go to the Lyons on Tottenhouse Court Road for some breakfast. By the time I'd finished eating, I felt calmer and much restored. These setbacks were to be expected. It was why Dunworthy had been so fussy about which Underground stations Polly could shelter in, and why he'd insisted she take extra funds. Taking extra cash was a hard-and-fast Time Travel rule. I wondered if Dunworthy or some other historian had found themselves short of funds at some point in the early history of time travel.

While I drank a second cup of tea, I entertained myself by imagining Dunworthy stuck somewhere without enough money, being forced to find employment. What sort of job would he have done? Practically anything, I thought, considering all the skills he'd taught me. It amused me most to imagine him as a schoolmaster, trying to cope with a room full of twelve-year-old Colins. He'd never complained, but my advent must have overturned the well-ordered life he'd been accustomed to. I'd never thought about it while I was growing up, but witnessing the chaos that James and his brother Terence had brought into the Henry household made me see what a handful I'd been.

At last, it was time for the shops to open. Walking down Oxford Street, I realized I'd forgotten how enormous some of the department stores had been in this era. By the time I'd got here in 1960, many of the department stores had been replaced by smaller shops.

Given the size of Townsend Brothers, I decided to go straight to the personnel office instead of wandering about looking for Polly and Merope on my own. I was surprised by the deference I received when I arrived there, then remembered I was still wearing my ARP armband and helmet. Given my disheveled state, perhaps the receptionist thought I'd come to Townsend Brothers to tell them one of their employees wouldn't be coming to work ever again.

“I'm looking for my cousins, Polly Sebastian and Eileen O' Reilly,” I said, and promptly realized they might not have told Townsend Brothers they were related. It was a standard Time Travel ploy, but had they used it? “I know they work here, but I'm not sure which departments they're in just now. Great-uncle James is dreadfully ill, and I've been asked to fetch them home for a brief visit.”

“Let me check our records,” the receptionist said. After a few minutes, she said, “I'm afraid your cousins have recently left Townsend Brothers to volunteer for service. The Essential Works Order, you know. A lot of our girls are leaving just now, to have a choice in what sort of war work they do. I'm surprised they didn't tell you.”

“Likely they didn't want to worry our grandmother,” I said, pretending a calmness I didn't feel. “After Dunkirk, she's convinced something dreadful will happen to all of us. Do you have their most recent address? I went 'round their boardinghouse on Cardle Street this morning and saw they'd been bombed out.”

After a brief glance, the receptionist said, “No, the address we have on record is 14 Cardle Street. I do hope they're all right.”

So do I, I thought. I thanked her for her time and left, feeling very discouraged.

I was weary to the bone, and had no idea of where to search next, so I went back to Oxford to report my failure.

January 2069

The whole retrieval team was waiting for me in the lab. I could see the excitement in their eyes die as they realized I'd come back alone.

“They're gone,” I said. “They've left Townsend Brothers to volunteer for war work, and the house on Cardle Street's been bombed out.”

There was a grim silence, then Ned said, “Check the casualty lists, but they should have been sheltering in Notting Hill Gate, unless they took lodgings in another part of the city. It's a matter of looking through National Service and Civil Defence records. Either we'll find them that way, or we'll wait until the closure opens a bit more.”

He was right, of course, but that did little to improve my spirits. Once again, I'd thought I had a retrieval within my grasp, only to come up empty-handed. At least this time, I'd been truly empty-handed instead of holding an armful of dying historian.

“You're a mess,” Kivrin said. “How long did you spend going through the rubble?”

“I didn't,” I admitted. “The bomb that fell on Mrs. Rickett's happened weeks ago. The neighbors weren't sure who was home at the time.”

“Then how did you get that?” Ned asked, gesturing at my bandaged hand.

“Clearing rubble in the East End. The net malfunctioned. I came through near the docks, in the middle of an air raid.”

They stared at me, and Ned said, “You're not going back until we have this slippage problem sorted.”

“Your clothes are bloody,” Badri said.

“I lifted a lot of wounded people out of the wreckage.”

“Your clothing's bloody in the back, as well,” Verity said. “The back of your overcoat has several small tears in it. And you've got a whacking great dent in your helmet.”

I knew about the helmet. I'd tried to flatten the dent in 1941, with no success. I hadn't known about my coat, as I hadn't taken it off the entire time I'd been there.

“You should go to Infirmary,” Ned said.

“I've already had the cut stitched,” I said, “but perhaps they can still seal it.” I didn't bother arguing with him about returning to 1941, slippage or no slippage. There would be time enough for that when I had some idea of what I should try next.

Kivrin asked, “Shall I fetch some clean clothes from your rooms, so you can change there? You truly are a mess.”

“Yes, please,” I said, and left before anyone could ask me to take off my coat.

When I got to Infirmary, I peeled off my overcoat for a look. It was indeed torn, as was the suit coat underneath it. My shirt was bloodied and torn in places, and a gash on my right shoulder had bled rather badly.

The nurse in Infirmary tended my wounds, which were mostly gouges surrounded by bruises that were already beginning to show. She sealed the deeper wounds and said, “You're lucky you were wearing the helmet. It likely saved you from concussion, or worse.”

She was fascinated by my stitches, and took several photographs of my hand before removing the stitches and sealing the cut. “You should have come to us for treatment straight away,” she scolded. “Those stitches are absolutely barbaric.”

I nearly pointed out that the last time I'd decided to wait until Oxford to seek medical treatment had been a disaster. In any case, the stitches had stopped the bleeding long enough for me to not find Polly.

Where had she gone?

Kivrin was waiting for me when the nurse finished.

“Thanks for bringing the clothes,” I said. “Wardrobe's not going to be too happy about what I've done to these,” I said, hefting a carrier bag full of torn and bloody clothing.

“It would be nice if you could travel to the 1940s without ruining a costume,” she agreed. “How bad is the damage?”

“No concussion. Lots of cuts and bruises, but no broken bones. Some hearing loss, but that's probably temporary.”

“You were bloody lucky.  Why didn't you go to a shelter?”

“Because I was afraid it was the night a shelter got hit, and I was right. That's where I was rescuing people,” I said. “I checked Dunworthy's drop in St. Paul's,” I added, in an effort to change the subject. “It's undamaged and accessible, so we should be able to use it when there's no one around.”

“I'll tell Ned. You should get some rest. It obviously hurts when you move, even though you haven't said so.”

She was right. I was exhausted and stiff, and the bruises were becoming quite unpleasant. We went over to Hall for lunch and I told her what it was like to be outside in the middle of a raid.

“It's not like the books,” she said, when I'd finished describing it.

“The books aren't wrong. They're just not... enough. How long do you think it will be before Ned lets me try again?”

“No idea,” she said. “Knowing your luck, though, he'll be willing long before you've found another clue.”

March 2069

I spent the next two months going back and forth to archives, trying to find where Polly and Merope had done their National Service. I'd hoped the task would be trivial, but the records were scattered and so badly jumbled that I more or less had to look through every single record for a mention of Polly Sebastian or Eileen O'Reilly.

I began each work-week filled with a stern determination that this week would be the week I found them, that a record of their service must exist somewhere and I'd find it if I searched diligently enough. I spent the weekends worrying that they'd left London, or changed their names, or been blown to tiny pieces and no one had missed them.

I missed them.

Two weeks before the time travel conference, Ned called me into his office. “There's been a schedule change. The session for Retrieval specialists has been moved to the same time-slot as our update session on the closure. Would you mind chairing the closure session? TJ will be there to field any detailed questions about the maps.”

“Not at all.”

“Excellent,” he said. “Good luck with the parrots.”

Not all of the parrots had come to Cairo, although Ishiwaka was there. “Colin,” he said, greeting me warmly as people milled around, looking for seats. “Why is it that we have to travel halfway 'round the world to speak face-to-face?”

“That's down to me,” I said. “I don't spend much time in Oxford, either.”

He leaned in closer to me and said, “Don't let these old cranks get to you.”

“Sir,” I said, smiling, “after surviving an air raid, I feel equal to anything.”

And I did, even though TJ had come down with a stomach bug the day before the conference, leaving me to handle the session on my own. I took the audience through the developments of the past year, pointing out the marked improvements in the maps. “The inverse map for the post-1995 period is finally showing minimal signs of improvement,” I said, displaying the new map with its dark grey areas, “and the World War II closure has greatly changed. We've been able to do a drop as far back as mid-March of 1941, and the other side of the closure has moved forward from 1937 to April of 1940.”

“What's the slippage like?” Ishiwaka asked.

“Average slippage for unmanneds is several minutes for drops as far back as October of 1941.”

“Unmanned drops?” one of the parrots interrupted. “So you haven't actually risked sending anyone?”

“The slippage between mid-March and September fluctuates wildly,” I continued.

“So no manned drops. That doesn't show much confidence in your own maps,” he said accusingly.

I stared at him briefly, in my best impersonation of the warning look Mr. Dunworthy had often given me when he thought I was being too cheeky. “I have personally gone on a drop to March 19, 1941. As I said, the temporal map in that area is what TJ refers to as mushy. We knew before I left that the average slippage for mid-March was several hours. After some debate, we decided to risk the drop on the strength of the inverse maps which gave no indication that the closure was on the verge of reclaiming the end of March.”

“Obviously, you're here with us, so the inverse map was correct,” Ishiwaka said. “What happened?”

“I came through about twelve hours late, and several miles east of my usual drop,” I said.

“Destination malfunction,” someone said. “That's not good.”

“It wasn't,” I said, grinning. “I landed outdoors, in the middle of an air raid.”

“March nineteenth,” someone in the back said, as if trying to remember what had happened on that date.

“A bad night for London,” I supplied. “Four hundred and seventy tons of high explosives and over one hundred thousand incendiaries struck the East End and the docks. Hundreds were killed or seriously injured, including dozens of people in a public shelter at Bullivant's Wharf.”

“And where were you?” asked a woman in the third row.

“I came through a few blocks from Bullivant's Wharf, and spent hours rescuing survivors, before being injured myself.”

“You interfered,” one of the parrots said accusingly. I wondered if he'd ever gone on assignment.

“Yes,” I said. “I was dressed as an ARP warden. It was expected of me. I would have done it, in any case. People needed help.”

“Don't you think it's irresponsible, masquerading as a warden, when you're not qualified?” said a man in the second row.

“Actually, I've done all the training typically given to ARP wardens,” I said. “I'm not sure how it's handled at other institutions, but it's standard procedure at Oxford to do extensive prep before going on assignment.”

“How badly were you injured?” Ishiwaka said curiously.

“Not badly at all,” I said. “A rather nasty cut on one hand, several large bruises, and some other cuts. I was struck in the head by something, probably a brick, but I was wearing a helmet, so I wasn't injured.”

“Interesting,” Ishiwaka said. “You could have easily been killed, yet came through unharmed.”

“Unharmed” was not a word I would have chosen, considering the deep bruises which had mottled my back the day after I'd returned from 1941, but I held my tongue.

“You haven't told us why you were there,” said a woman in the front row.

“I was there to retrieve Polly Churchill and Merope Ward,” I said. “Michael Davies had told me where they were living and working in January of 1941.”

“And did you find them?” the woman asked.

“No,” I said. “They'd left the department store where they were employed to volunteer for war work and their lodgings had been bombed out.”

“They were killed,” someone said.

“Unlikely,” I replied. “There were two victims whose names I haven't traced yet, but a contemp told me the victims had a history of not using air raid shelters.”

“You seem convinced that your missing historians would have used the shelters. Why?” said a man in the fourth row.

“Have you ever met James Dunworthy?” I asked, and several people laughed.

“I don't understand,” the man said uncertainly.

“He's notoriously protective of his students,” someone called out. “You can be sure that his historians were thoroughly prepped and likely knew which Underground stations were safe to shelter in.”

“I know Polly had that information,” I said. “I did the research for her implant myself.”

“But she didn't know about her lodgings,” someone objected.

“She only had a list of air raids until the end of 1940,” I said. “That should have been enough, as it would have been months after her scheduled rendezvous.”

“So you believe they're alive, but don't know where they are,” Ishiwaka said.

“That's right,” I answered. “For the time being, I'm trying to find them through the archives. If they volunteered for service, there should be a record of it somewhere. London is enormous, and we don't even know if they stayed in London or were given assignments elsewhere. If we can't find them through the records, there's still a good chance the closure will open further, and I can fetch them from January 1941.”

And let that happen soon, I thought, as I was getting nowhere with my records search.

After the session, a few people remained to speculate about the post-1995 closure: what did it mean and why was it taking so long to open? I listened closely, hoping for some inspiration, but nothing stirred a spark in my brain.

After agreeing to meet Ishiwaka for dinner later than evening, I popped over to the room where Kivrin had been doing her session for medievalists. They'd clearly finished earlier than I had, because the only two people in the room were Kivrin and a man, and they were kissing passionately.

Kivrin heard me come in, and turned to see who it was. I excused myself, and started to back out of the room, but she called me back and introduced me.

“Stefan, this is Colin. Colin, this is Stefan Adamicz. Stefan's at New York University. We met two years ago, when the conference was in Beijing,” she explained.

“Really?” I said. “And here I thought you were stooping to new lows to recruit historians to your time period,” I teased.

“As I told you,” Kivrin said to Stefan, “Colin's my obnoxious little brother.” She turned to me and said, “How'd your session go?”

“Well enough,” I said. “Ishiwaka's invited me along to dinner again, and Ned as well. Speaking of which, I'd better find Ned and let him know. Good to meet you,” I said to Stefan, who mumbled a pleasantry. Either he was embarrassed at having been caught snogging like a teenager or he wasn't altogether sure he approved of me.

I'd thought Ishiwaka would spend dinner grilling me about what had happened in 1941, but almost all of his questions were about the post-1995 period.

“You once said that the maps seem to be changing with each discovery you make,” he said to Ned. “What have you learned about the post-1995 period?'

“Nothing that we're certain of,” Ned said. “Colin?”

I hesitated, and then said, “I would prefer that what I'm about to tell you remained confidential.”

Ishiwaka's eyebrows rose slightly, but he said, “You have my word.”

“Mr. Dunworthy kept personal diaries that reach back to the early days of time travel,” I said. “Kivrin Engle went through them after he left, looking for some clue as to his state of mind. All we knew at the time was that he was concerned about the increased slippage and that he was looking into an incident from one of his earliest drops.”

“Bumping into the Wren?” Ishiwaka asked.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Kivrin eventually read and indexed all of Dunworthy's diaries. Shortly before we saw the improvement in the inverse map for post-1995, I was using her index to locate and read various passages myself.”

“And what did you discover?” Ishiwaka said.

“That's just it,” I said. “I don't know. I didn't see anything that made me think 'aha'. As soon as Ned told me about the map change, I made a note of what I'd been reading. I've considered it more than once since the map change, but I still have no idea what happened.”

“So, when Miss Engle read the diaries, nothing happened?” he said.

“Yes,” I answered.

“And when was that?”

“The summer of 2060 though the spring of 2062,” I said.

“But when you read the diaries... how long ago?”

“Last September.”

“Then there was a change?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And not just in the post-1995 era,” Ned put in. “That's when the inverse map opened all the way back to March 1941.”

Ishiwaka looked at me thoughtfully, and said, “If I subscribed to the Grand Design school of thought with respect to time travel, I'd say there's something in those diaries that needs to be learned... but it has to be learned by you. If your searching reaches a dead end before January 1941 opens, I'd suggest going back to the diaries.”

I spent a goodly portion of the trip back from Cairo thinking about the diaries. Should I go back to them? I'd considered it before, but had put it off in favor of activities more likely to yield results, such as archive searches. Would it do me any good to re-read things, or should I move on to other topics?

“You're very quiet,” Kivrin said, disturbing my thoughts.

“Just thinking about something Ishiwaka said,” I told her. “So, this Stefan... serious love interest, or merely handy for the occasional dirty weekend?”

“You are hideous,” she said, smothering a laugh.

“Stefan?” Ned said, on the other side of her. “Isn't he that rabbity-looking historian who followed you around like a puppy in Beijing?”

“He does have rather unfortunate teeth,” Kivrin admitted. “But he's one of the few medievalists I've met who doesn't react to the whole Black Death thing with either jealousy or adoration.”

“You haven't answered my question,” I said.

“I don't know,” she said. “He's talking about taking his sabbatical year at Oxford.”

“Ohhh.”

“Yes,” Kivrin said. “I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. But if he does come, there will be no teasing from you, do you understand? Unless, of course, you want me to retaliate when Polly comes home.”

“Which, at the rate things are going, will be never,” I said. “I'm having no luck at all with the archives.”

She hesitated, then said, “If you can't find any records of them in 1941, perhaps you can find someone who served with them.”

“How?”

“Reunions,” she said. “There must have been some.”

Reunions. Of course. The very reason I'd steered clear of visiting anything after 1988. It was a needle in a haystack, but I'd been through so many National Service records that I was rapidly running out of hay to sift through. Reunions. Definitely worth a try.

August 2069

I'd hoped that selecting and attending reunions related to World War II would be a straightforward proposition, but I'd been far too optimistic.

After conferring with Ned, I'd decided to target the fiftieth anniversary reunions. They might attract more attendees than previous reunions, and there were certainly a good many more of them than for previous anniversaries. On the other hand, there was a real risk that the very people I hoped to speak with would have died or grown too ill to travel.

Having chosen a general target, I was left with the task of choosing which reunions to pursue first. My first choice was the “Women at War” reunion, but Badri and Linna had been trying to find a drop for it since April without success. So far, they hadn't been able to locate a drop for any of the reunions on my list. All of the most promising ones were for 1995, which, while technically accessible, was as “mushy” as some of 1941.

In the meantime, I'd returned to my routine of searching National Service records and had begun trying to find an open drop before March of 1941. Once a month, I spent a week in Oxford, running unmanneds to see if I could find a drop that would open anywhere in England or Scotland before mid-March. Badri seemed convinced that I was wasting my time, but I'd come so close to retrieving Polly that I found it hard to simply sit back and wait for the map to change.

Kivrin pursed her lips when she realized I'd flipped my days and nights so I could work all night, testing drop coordinates when the lab wasn't busy, but she kept her reservations to herself. I'd taken to starting my drops to the 1980s in the evening, Oxford time, so I wouldn't have to shift my sleep schedule back and forth.

I made other changes, as well. In late August, I moved out of Dunworthy's rooms.

“Nice flat,” Kivrin said, looking around. “But why do you need one? You're never here.”

“Consider it an expression of confidence in my ability to bring Polly and Merope home.”

“An expression of confidence... I'd say it's an expression of something else,” she said. “Why do you need a second bedroom when you have a study? Hoping to persuade Polly to share a flat with you, if not your bed?”

“Perhaps,” I mumbled.

“Colin... you shouldn't expect too much.  She's been in the 1940s for several months, at the least. Even if Polly was exactly the person you believed her to be in 2060, she's changed. And you've changed.”

“I know,” I said. “That's why I thought the flat... well, perhaps we could begin as flatmates, and get to know each other. And then if she wanted something more...”

“If you wanted something more, as well,” she said gently. “You're allowed to change your mind, you know. You need to allow yourself room to admit that the ideal you've pursued may not be who Polly is. If you don't, you'll both be miserable.”

“This was a ridiculous idea,” I said, abruptly discouraged by her realism. “I haven't even got them back yet.”

“You will,” she said.

I shook my head. “I've gone through nearly all of the National Service and Civil Defence records I can get my hands on,” I said, then realized something. “Oh.”

“What?” Kivrin asked.

“What if they were recruited to work at Bletchley Park, or do some other sort of secret work? I need to look through the British Intelligence records again.”

“You didn't notice them before?” she said doubtfully.

“No, but I was concentrating on male operatives,” I said. “And virtually all the documents refer only to cover names. I never did find a list mapping true names to cover names.”

“That would explain why you haven't found them in the ordinary records,” she said. “Clever you.”

November 2069

After finishing the National Service records, I moved on to reading British Intelligence documents. I could find no mention of Polly or Merope at Bletchley Park, or anywhere on the War Office rolls, but I wasn't sure if they would have taken new names. Wendy Armitage hadn't needed a cover name, but Michael had. I tried not to think about the women who'd been sent to Europe on covert missions. Far too many of them had never returned.

In desperation, I began photographing records in the 1980s so I could review them on the weekends in Oxford, which let me get more work done until I flunked a medical check and was grounded from time travel for two weeks.

I spent that time re-reading every diary entry I'd seen the previous September, paying meticulous attention to small details, and it was only the prospect of being grounded for another week that made me put down the diaries occasionally to rest. As before, nothing jumped out at me. The only thing that halfway niggled at my consciousness was Wendy Armitage, and that was only because she was from the World War II era. She'd worked in Bletchley Park and she'd married David Hardy. What else could I learn about her?

Three weeks later I came back from a research drop, to find Badri smiling.

“We have a drop for you,” he said.

“The 'Women at War' exhibit?” I asked.

“No, we're still working on that one. But we can get you to the Imperial War Museum in May 1995. It's the opening of the series leading up to the 'Women at War' exhibit.”

“Well done,” I said. “When can I go?”

“Better ask Ned,” he said. “He asked me to send you along as soon as you came through.”

I checked the clock in the lab. If I hurried, I should be able to catch Ned in his office.

“Badri's found me a reunion drop,” I said, as I entered Ned's office.

“I know,” he said. “Definitely good news. What have you been up to lately?”

“The usual research,” I said. “Why?”

“The inverse map for post-1995 has changed,” he said.

“Better or worse?” I asked.

“Better,” he said. “Parts of it are medium-grey. TJ says the temporal map for 1995 itself may firm up soon, which should let you reach all the reunions.”

I must have looked as confused as I felt, because Ned said, “What is it? Did you find out something about Polly or Merope?”

“No,” I answered slowly, “but I did some genealogical research on Wendy Armitage. The last time we had a change in the post-1995 map I'd just been reading Dunworthy's diaries.”

“I remember,” he said. “So you decided to take a closer look at her. What did you find?”

“Not much. I've only got as far as her children. It's probably a coincidence.”

“Still...” he said.

I nodded. “I'll keep pursuing it when I get back from 1995.”

May 1995

I was relieved to arrive at the proper time and place. After my disastrous drop to 1941, I'd been a little apprehensive every time I stepped into the net, even on routine research drops. Having arrived safely, I was confronted with the dilemma of where I should go. There was an event today at St. Paul's as well as the one at the Imperial War Museum. Which one should I try first?

Since I'd come through early and had some time in hand, I decided to go to the Imperial War Museum. This will not be like the last time, I told myself firmly, as I fended off an American woman intent on setting me up with her daughter. Nothing will go wrong.

And then Ann Perry saw me.

I'd mentally prepared myself to be patient and charming, even if I had to endure dozens of meandering conversations with elderly women who'd been nowhere near London during the Blitz. I hadn't even considered the possibility of running into Ann, or I would have dyed my hair or grown a mustache. Stupid, stupid. When would I ever learn to check everything before going on a drop?

My only saving grace was that I looked too young to be the Connor Cross she remembered. Nearly five years had passed since we'd first met, but the marks left by the years of searching and Michael's death were primarily internal. Ann seemed happy with her life, but the old guilt I'd felt about not returning her love came flooding back with a rush.

I mastered the impulse to thank her for what she'd done, all those years ago, as I thought of the tiny, laborious steps which had led me to this point. The personal ads in London newspapers from 1940 and 1941 which had hinted Michael, Polly, and Merope might be together. The condolence letter to the Peytons that had given me Wendy Armitage's name. The dream pointing me to the essay that led to David Hardy, who'd told me Michael had been at Dunkirk and Orpington. The search for something-on-Sea, which had led me to Daphne and Mavis, who in turn had pointed me at Commander Harold and British Intelligence. Ann, bless her, who'd shown me the false article planted by Fortitude South, which had eventually led to Michael's failed retrieval. Michael, who'd told me that Polly and Eileen were together in London in January 1941. Perhaps even Dunworthy's diaries, although I was still uncertain that reading them was having any effect. None of that had happened quickly, I firmly reminded myself. This was only my first reunion. I should be patient.

I'd spoken to most of the reunion attendees, and was about to give up and head for St. Paul's when someone introduced me to the woman who'd once been called Binnie Hodbin.

December 2069

Ned and Kivrin were waiting for me in the lab. I smiled broadly at them, and said, “He's alive. He's alive, and I know where to find them.”

“Who's alive?” Linna asked.

“Dunworthy,” Kivrin said, and began to cry.

We had an impromptu meeting, right there in the lab, as soon as Verity and Finch arrived. The handful of historians who'd been scheduled for that afternoon looked at us curiously as they arrived and departed, but I didn't mind being stared at. I didn't mind anything at all.

With occasional pauses to allow Badri and Linna to concentrate on their duties, I described everything that had happened.

“So Merope chose to stay in the past and raise Alf and Binnie, but Polly and Mr. Dunworthy left with me,” I concluded. “Binnie didn't remember the exact date, but it was after April sixteenth, the night the north transept of St. Paul's was hit—”

“Dunworthy's drop is in the north transept,” Badri said.

“I know. If we can't get it to open, I'll use the emergency staircase,” I said. “I'll go as an ARP warden again.”

“Let's see what the map looks like,” Ned said.

“But we know where they are,” I objected.

“And this is time travel,” he said firmly. “We'll try every day between April seventeenth and May first, Dunworthy's deadline, but we don't have to do it when the map is mushy. I don't want you to land in the middle of the raid on the sixteenth.”

I opened my mouth to object, but Finch said, “The map has been steadily improving.”

“Not since I went to March 1941,” I said.

“We'll do new maps,” Ned said, “and Badri and Linna will do unmanneds to test the slippage. When it drops to an acceptable level, we'll do the retrieval.”

I considered objecting, but Ned's voice held a note of finality. There was a time, I thought, when I wouldn't have accepted that. When I would have found a way to get Badri's or Linna's access code to set up a manned drop myself. What had become of that Colin?

He'd grown up, I thought. He'd learned the hard way that it could take years to unravel a single detail. As a child, I'd always been good at school and things had come to me easily. It had taken a long time to accept that there were things I had to work for, things I had to wait for, but I'd gradually come to believe it. And I'd finally put aside the childhood lessons which had told me I was alone in the world, accountable to and helped by no one. Starting with Mr. Dunworthy, I'd learned to rely on people, and that circle of trust had gradually widened to include Kivrin and Ned and the others.

“We'll do new maps,” I agreed, and saw Ned and Kivrin relax fractionally.

Once I'd agreed to wait for more favorable drop conditions, I didn't know what to do with myself. There was no need to spend my nights trying unmanneds to January 1941, and no reason to continue looking for records of Polly's war service. I knew the location and approximate time-frame for the retrieval. What could I do to be ready?

Before anything else, I screwed up my courage and went to London to see Polly's mum, Helen.

“I have promising news,” I said, as soon as she opened the door. I didn't want her to think I'd come to tell her of Polly's death.

Over a cup of tea, I explained some of my recent work to her and told her about Binnie. “So we know when and where I retrieved Polly, but the map's rather unstable now. We're waiting for things to be more settled.”

“Which could take years,” she said.

“We don't know,” I said. “Given how much progress we've seen in the past few years, I don't believe it will take that long, but I wanted you to know that she's alive and safe, and that we will reach her eventually.”

“But that it might not be during my lifetime,” she said.

I looked down at my hands, remembering that Binnie had told me I looked much younger to her than the day I'd come to the theater. Did I have years yet to wait, or had her perception of my age been influenced by her youth? At twelve, Kivrin had seemed very old and grown up to me, although she was barely ten years my senior.

Helen leaned over and placed a hand on mine. “Thank you,” she said. “It's a comfort to know she'll come home someday.”

After saying goodbye to Helen, I took the Tube to see Ishiwaka.

“Colin,” he said, shaking hands with me, “I was surprised when my secretary told me you were coming.”

“I have something to tell you,” I said.

“In confidence?” he asked.

“Very much so,” I said. “I've just come back from a drop where I spoke with a contemp who witnessed my retrieval of Polly Churchill. I now have a location and a two-week window to aim for.”

His eyes rounded in wonder. “And the other historian? Miss Ward, is it not?”

“She chose to stay behind, to take care of two of her evacuees,” I said. “She eventually adopted them. One of them was the woman I spoke to. But there's more. Dunworthy was with them.”

Ishiwaka's mouth dropped open. “And did he return with you?”

I nodded. “I've checked the casualty lists for that two-week period, and haven't found anything that sounded like the three of us. Not only did we leave for the drop together, I believe it actually worked.”

He smiled. “I look forward to revising my theories yet again.”

The most mundane task proved to be extraordinarily difficult: getting my sleeping and waking times flipped back to normal. For whatever reason, it had been easier to switch to working at night and sleeping during the day than it was to change things back again. Kivrin made gentle jokes about “zombie Colin” when she saw me, but I could tell she approved of the change.

Kivrin was making changes of her own. Stefan had come to Oxford for his sabbatical, and he and Kivrin were planning a joint drop to the thirteenth century. So far, Kivrin was happy and Stefan seemed to be fitting into Oxford life with minimal difficulty. I wondered what would happen when it was time for him to return home.

I researched the weather conditions and air raids for the latter half of April 1941, and made a map of which streets had been inaccessible and which buses and trains were known to have been out of service for each night of my retrieval window. I plotted possible routes from St. Paul's to the Regent Theater and identified functioning air raid shelters near those routes. I was not going to be caught outdoors in an air raid with Polly and Mr. Dunworthy if I could help it. Binnie had told me I'd left the theater with them, which was no guarantee the three of us had made it safely back to the drop, despite my review of the casualty lists.

Weather, raids, transportation, shelters, impassable areas... what else did I need? A costume. Idiot! In all these months, I'd never asked for a replacement. I went over to Wardrobe, gave them my best apologetic expression, and asked for a new ARP uniform.

They'd long since made one, thanks to Ned. “Although we thought you'd like to re-use the helmet, as the dent makes for a nice touch of realism,” I was told. I thanked them and took the costume away with me.

“I'm not sure what else to do,” I told Kivrin that evening. Two weeks had passed since I'd spoken to Binnie, and the maps hadn't budged at all.

“Easy,” she said. “Re-apply for graduate school. You've been waiting for Dunworthy. There's a decent chance you'll have fetched him home by next fall.”

“But I've already missed the deadline,” I said. “Haven't I?”

“I believe the University deadline's in January, so you'll need to begin immediately. If you want to apply for Medieval, I'm willing to view your application favorably,” she said with a teasing grin, “and I expect Verity would be willing to have you again for Twentieth Century. You can switch to Dunworthy when he gets back. The University won't try to match your interests with a tutor not currently in Oxford.”

I spent the next week putting together an application. I couldn't apply directly to Balliol, but I put it down as my first choice, making sure to mention that I'd previously been accepted to do graduate work at Baillol but had declined for personal reasons.

As Christmas approached, I thought to myself that surely this would be the last Christmas without Polly and Dunworthy. I'd had the same thought before, but never believed it as intensely as I did now.

I was restlessly roaming around my flat, trying to decide what I could do to make it seem more inviting to Polly, when I came across the boxes my mother had given me. I'd never opened them. So much for an historian's spirit of discovery, I thought ruefully.

I'd spent years looking through other people's pasts; perhaps it was time I looked through my own. I opened the box, and almost immediately found a picture of my father. I had his smile, just as Great-aunt Mary had said.

I was idly flipping through an ancient album of photographs, when I was captivated by what looked to be a wedding portrait.

The bride was Merope.

Chapter Text

January 2070

I spent the next month researching the people in the photographs. The boxes Mum had given me were full of photographs, but they'd been taken for the enjoyment of immediate family members, not the edification of historians. Very few of them had names, dates, or locations written down on the back. Even the ones with names on didn't include surnames.

I eventually learned that Merope, as Eileen O' Reilly, had married Alistair Goode in August 1945. They'd adopted Alf and Binnie Hodbin shortly thereafter. That said more to me about Goode's courage than his military service, which had been eventful. Eileen and Alistair had gone on to have two children of their own, Godfrey and Mary.

Mary Goode had married Eric Ahrens in 1976 and they'd had four children. Their youngest child, also named Mary, had come along in 1995. Their first child, Catherine, had married Jonathan Hamilton in 2016 and given birth to a daughter, Deirdre, who'd married Richard Templer in 2041.

Merope was my great-great-grandmother.

Out of curiosity, I traced Merope's ancestors back, generation by generation, which took another three weeks, before running into a name I recognized: Michael Hardy, eldest child of Wendy and David.

What did it mean?

Dunworthy had bumped into Wendy Armitage and likely saved her life. Decades later, Michael had gone on a drop and supposedly saved David Hardy. I'd focused on the hundreds of lives that Hardy had saved at Dunkirk and never given a thought to his descendants. Dunworthy and Michael between them had inadvertently led to the creation of Great-aunt Mary, whose quick thinking had kept an epidemic from becoming a pandemic.

The epidemic which had followed Kivrin into the past and given her the perfect cover for sorting out language and cultural differences, on the drop that had established her as an authority and led to our meeting. The epidemic that had brought me into Dunworthy's keeping, which led to my becoming an historian and ultimately spearheading the effort to retrieve the man responsible for my very existence. The connections kept spiraling around until I felt dizzy trying to follow them all.

I took my discoveries along to the next meeting of the retrieval team.

“Do you remember what Ishiwaka said to me, about the diaries holding something we needed to learn?” I asked Ned.

“Something you needed to learn,” he corrected. “Not just any one of us.”

“This was it,” I said. “It must have been. We should run the maps.”

Five days later, Ned authorized the drop.

April 1941

I arrived in the transept at St. Paul's and promptly lost my footing on some rubble, nearly falling into a bomb crater. I inched away from the edge of the hole, then pulled out my blackout torch, scolding myself for not having used it in the first place.

I slowly rose to my feet and carefully made my way across the shifting debris. Would the drop in the emergency staircase be easier to reach than this one? Probably so, in the daytime, but getting past the shelterers and the warden guarding the entrance at night could be a challenge. I'd have to be careful bringing Polly and Dunworthy back across this rubble.

I heard footsteps approaching. Someone must have heard the noise and come to check. I briefly considered diving behind a pillar, but I still had a few feet of rubble left to traverse and didn't want to risk upsetting it. Even if the footsteps belonged to the same men I'd spoken to in March, I could claim I'd heard a noise while passing and come in to investigate.

I saw a tall man, stooped with age or tiredness, making his way down the aisle. As he neared me, he passed through a shaft of moonlight.

It was him.

“I've got to get you out of here, Mr. Dunworthy.”

“Colin?” he said in disbelief, then his tone sharpened. “Colin! Young man, I left specific instructions that you were not to follow me through the net.”

I stepped forward into the moonlight, closing the distance between us, and Dunworthy's breath caught as he realized I was no longer a teenager. He cupped my cheek in one hand, and said, “How many years?” in a tone halfway between wonder and dismay.

“Nearly ten,” I answered, and found myself close to tears, thinking of the long, lonely time it had taken me to get here. The child I'd been longed to fling himself at Dunworthy, to be enfolded by strong arms and told that the bad thing was over and he'd done well.  The man I'd become knew the raids would be heavy tonight and we could ill afford the time it would take me to master my emotions if I lost control.  Tearful reunions would have to wait.

Dunworthy moved his hand to the back of my neck, rubbing it in a soothing motion I remembered well from the storms of my adolescence. I hadn't thought about that gesture in years; hadn't even realized how much I'd missed it.

Dad, I thought, although I'd never said it.

He must have sensed my mood, because he smiled slightly and his features smoothed as I relaxed under his touch.

“Your torch,” I said in mock seriousness, kneeling to present my blackout torch as if it were a ceremonial sword. It was the same one I'd fetched for Mr. Dunworthy ten years earlier. I'd kept it all this time, as a sort of talisman, a promise to myself that I would one day deliver it to him.

“As cheeky as ever, I see,” he said, eyes twinkling with amusement.

I rose. “You've only got ten days. I need to get you back.” Behind us, the drop was starting to shimmer again.

“No. I need to take you to them.”

“To the Regent? I know how to get there,” I said, pulling at his sleeve. I knew it was futile, but still felt compelled to try.

“No,” he said again, drawing back slightly. “I'm going with you.”

There was a sadness in his face that told me he knew. “To say goodbye to Merope.”

I'd surprised him. “You know?”

“Yes.”

“Eileen told you where to find us,” he concluded. “Merope, I mean.”

“No. It was Binnie. But how did you know?”

“It's something around the eyes,” he said. “And the unquenchable optimism. She has the gift of being able to find happiness in rather dismal situations. Your great-grandmother?”

“Great-great, but we'll talk about that later. I need to get you and Polly out of here before midnight, if possible. The raids will be much worse, after.”

We slowly made our way across the city. I let Mr. Dunworthy choose our route, but paid careful attention to where we were. It was one of the possibilities I'd mapped out.

“Have you retrieved the other historians?” he asked. “We've been particularly concerned about Charles Bowden.”

“We pulled him out years ago, not long after you left. The others were never sent through.”

“So they're all safe?  Except for Michael Davies. The girls told me about his death.”

“Michael died, but not in January 1941,” I said, and went on to explain about Michael's work on Fortitude South and how it had eventually led to my being here.

“He wanted to study everyday heroes,” Dunworthy said quietly. “I always wondered whether that was because he was striving to find a hero within himself.”

“If so, he certainly managed it.”

“Any other deaths?” he asked. When I hesitated, he commanded, “Tell me.”

“Not one of the historians you sent on assignment. One of my yearmates. You probably didn't even know him.”

“Pearson,” he said at once. At my startled reaction, he said, “I remember his interview. Wilkens and I were concerned about his immaturity. How did it happen?”

“Trubshaw sent him on a practicum, over Wilkens' objections. He started a swordfight with a Roman solider, and lost.”

“Trubshaw?” he said in disgust.

I grinned. “Yes, Trubshaw. He was Acting Head for years, but he's retired now. I'm dying to know what happened between the two of you because it's clear he detests you.”

“Mm,” he said. “Well, it's rather a long story. Let's just say that Trubshaw went on a practicum to Victorian England and managed to get himself into an extremely awkward situation. I was part of the retrieval team, and he's never forgiven me for having witnessed his humiliation. I'll tell you the full story when we get back to Oxford. What have the temporal theorists been saying?”

“Most of them have been agreeing with Ishiwaka.”

“And Ishiwaka? Colin, I hope you haven't been telling him his theory is bollocks.”

“No,” I said, grinning widely. “I've let him discover that on his own.” At Dunworthy's disapproving look, I said, “Oh, don't scowl, I've been perfectly respectful to him, and Ishiwaka's been very decent to me. We get along quite well.”

“We're here,” he said, and we were. Suddenly, I didn't want to go in. Dunworthy must have sensed that, because he said, “She mentions you every day.”

So he had known about Polly. I nodded, swallowing convulsively, but still made no move to enter. “It's not Polly. I'm not sure what to say to Merope.”

“Colin... Merope... she will be all right?” he asked.

"Yes. Not just all right, but very happy.”

“Then let's take firm hold of that, and do what we must,” he said, and went in.

I followed a few paces behind him, steeling myself for the conversation to come. I remembered Merope primarily as one of Dunworthy's students. We'd known each other, but not very well. Binnie hadn't said anything about my revealing any of Merope's future to her, so I'd resolved to say nothing, but it was going to be hard to say goodbye to her without telling her anything. I was glad I'd never read the folder on Ann Perry, although doing so would have saved me from an awkward interlude in 1995. Perhaps I'd look her up when I got back.

Merope wasn't there, but Polly was.

She was different than I'd imagined. Somewhat thinner, of course, and I had imagined that bit, given the rationing and the worry she'd endured. And she looked tired, but I'd expected that as well, with the air raids interrupting her sleep.

In my fearfulness, I'd often imagined her alone or frightened or both, and she was neither. If she were desperate to escape 1941, she didn't look it. I felt as if I'd walked in on an ordinary day in a life she'd always known. I didn't know whether she'd done it willingly or easily, but she'd clearly adapted to her situation. She'd made friends, and had a home of sorts here.

And I'd come to rip her away from all of it.

I stood there, not speaking, wondering if I'd made a terrible mistake. Polly caught sight of me and she, too, froze in place. I saw her expression change from disbelief to joy to regret, and then I was startled to recognize an appraising look I'd often seen on other women's faces but never on hers. Whether she was aware of it or not, she was sizing me up as a man, a potential romantic partner, and liking what she found. I felt a soaring hope surge within me and thought, Don't let things go wrong now. Let me get them home safely.

After what felt like several long minutes, Polly moved toward me, obviously delighted to see me and wanting to be rescued.

And yet... not. She occasionally glanced over her shoulder, as if looking for someone, and I could tell this parting would not be trivial.

While I was trying to think of something to say that would make things easier, Merope arrived. Dear God, I'd forgotten. Not only would I have to take Polly away from her new friends, Dunworthy and I would have to persuade her to leave Merope, too.

While Polly went off to change her clothes, Merope moved closer to me.

“Colin, I'm very glad you've come,” she said in a quiet, determined voice, “but I'm not going with you. I need to stay here with Alf and Binnie.”

“I know,” I said, although I had difficulty forcing the words out.

She smiled. “You probably know a great deal you shouldn't tell, but I could guess. No need: I know what I've chosen to do and that's all that's important.”

“Merope, there's something you should know about Michael,” Dunworthy said.

“Mike?” she said, looking back and forth between us in confusion.

“He faked his death in 1941 so he could join British Intelligence and plant secret messages to us in Fortitude South articles. He led me to you,” I said.

“Then he's all right?” she said joyfully.

“No,” I said. “He died just as I was retrieving him.”

“Oh,” she said, and her eyes filled with tears. “But he was right. He always thought someone would read his messages. It's good to know it worked.”

I'd been right to think that Polly wouldn't want to leave Merope behind. It was Merope who convinced her that Polly had to leave without her, because she'd already done it, and even then Polly kept thinking of one more thing to tell her. Overhead, I heard distant explosions. An air raid had begun in earnest. We needed to get to St. Paul's.

At the last moment, one of the actors called us back. It was immediately clear he was no amateur thespian, but someone long accustomed to holding an audience captive. And it was just as obvious, despite his being at least Dunworthy's age, that he was in love with Polly and she with him. He looked upon me intently, and gave me his benediction, as if passing Polly into my care, but I wasn't at all sure she wanted to be cared for by anyone, least of all me.

After debating the best way to get there, we set off for St. Paul's. I was acutely aware of Polly's nearness and Dunworthy's labored breathing. He looked nearly as ill as he'd been when I was twelve. I stopped, ostensibly to break the bad news about Michael to Polly, but my true intent was to give Dunworthy a rest. He'd seemed all right in the dimness of St. Paul's, but at the theater, I'd been shocked by how grey and haggard he was. Perhaps it was only the strain of parting from Merope, but I was worried about him and found myself wishing we'd taken the Underground instead of walking, even at the risk of being stuck overnight in an Underground station.

I hated telling Polly about Michael's death, although she was quick enough to guess when and where it had happened. I'd been afraid she'd be devastated by the news, but she seemed more weary than anything else. It's a war, you idiot, I thought. Michael's not the only person she's lost.

The bombing intensified as we neared St. Paul's. I quickened the pace, praying our luck would hold just a little bit longer. I was so close to getting them home.

Of course, something had to go wrong. The net opened while Polly was still navigating the rubble. I told Mr. Dunworthy to go ahead without us, and found myself trembling with relief when he disappeared into the net. I hadn't realized how afraid I'd been that the net would malfunction, even though the inverse map had said it wouldn't.

One of Polly's feet had got trapped in the rubble, and freeing her was a struggle. We had to leave her shoe behind, and made such a racket that I knew the noise would fetch someone from the fire watch. We ducked back into the nave, looking for somewhere to hide, and I pulled her behind a pillar.

As we stood close together, pressed up against the stone, I could feel her pulse beating wildly, or it was it my own? It was the first time I'd ever held her and I could have cheerfully stayed there forever, but we needed to go home. As soon as we were certain the fire watch had gone, I led her back to the drop.

March 2070

We came through the net to cheers and applause. Most of the retrieval team was in tears, and Kivrin and Verity were planted protectively on either side of Dunworthy.

Dunworthy beamed at me approvingly as the veils lifted, then he frowned. “You're bleeding,” he said to Polly.

Polly and I looked down and saw blood pooling on the floor around her bare foot. She must have cut it on broken glass. I lifted her off her feet before she had a chance to speak.

“But it doesn't hurt...” she said, glancing down at the floor and then up at me in confusion.

There were med techs with a stretcher, standing by. I carried her to the stretcher and would have fussed over her, but the techs gently pushed me aside.

I went over to Dunworthy and said, “You're the one who should be on a stretcher.”

He gave me an affronted look. “I'm perfectly capable of walking to Infirmary, and intend to do so as soon as I've called Polly's parents and Merope's father.”

I leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Merope's father is dead. So is Polly's. I'll ring Polly's mum, and then I'll tell Polly about her dad after she's had her foot seen to. This is not the place for such news.”

Dunworthy stared at me, blinking slowly, and said, “You have grown up.”

“In some ways,” Kivrin said. She winked at me. “Not so much in others.”

“Aren't you supposed to be planning a drop with Sir Stefan the Rabbity?” I said.

“Aren't you supposed—” Kivrin said.

“Children,” Dunworthy interrupted. “Cease and desist. You,” he said to me quietly, “please do call Polly's mother and you,” he said to Kivrin, “may explain about Sir Stefan.”

“Kivrin's got—” I began, but Dunworthy gave me a severe look. “Spoilsport,” I said, and grinned at Kivrin as soon as Dunworthy turned back to her. Mock-squabbling with Kivrin for Dunworthy's benefit was an old game I'd thought we'd never play again.

The first thing I learned at Infirmary was that Polly and Dunworthy had been transferred to hospital. Kivrin was pacing in a waiting area when I arrived.

“It's nothing serious, just a bit more than Infirmary was willing to handle,” she said. “Polly's having minor surgery on her foot now, and they'll likely release her tomorrow or the next day. The pulmonologist is still with Mr. Dunworthy. Did you reach Polly's mum?”

“Yes,” I said. “I tried to call her again from Infirmary, to tell her that Polly had been moved, but she'd already left. I told Helen to expect them to keep Polly overnight as a matter of course, since she's been on assignment for more than six months.”

“Colin, you need to give Polly time to adjust,” Kivrin said.

“I know. You may have noticed I didn't fetch her home in a morning coat. I'm well aware this is no time to talk about the future.”

Twenty minutes later, I was able to see Polly.

“I thought you'd be drowsy,” I said.

“They did a nerve block. My leg's still asleep. Sit,” she said, patting the bed next to her.

I hadn't expected such an invitation, but didn't hesitate to accept it.

“You will never understand how it felt to see you standing there,” Polly said. “I'd known all along that you'd come if you could, but I'd been afraid that something had gone horribly wrong in Oxford, that you might all be dead...”

I took her hand, as her voice trailed off.

“I tried,” I said softly. “My very hardest. I just couldn't get the net to cooperate.”

“But you did,” she said, “and it was glorious.” She leaned over and kissed me tenderly.

As kisses go, it certainly wasn't a bad one, but it wasn't as passionate as I would have hoped. It felt like she was thanking me, and for a horrible moment, I remembered Ann Perry saying, “Not if you don't mean it.”

After a bit, I pulled away. “What Merope said, about my being your fiancé. I don't expect that, as... as payment. I want you, but not like that.”

“I don't know what I want,” Polly said, looking lost. “I think I'm falling in love with you, but—”

“Shh. A few hours ago, you were trapped in 1941, and now you're unexpectedly back in Oxford, and ten years have passed. Of course you don't know what to think or feel,” I said.

She gave me a trembling smile that pierced me to the core. I didn't want to tell her, but I'd offered to do it, and Helen had been grateful to be spared the task.

“Polly,” I said tentatively, “I'm afraid I have bad news.”

“I want to see my parents,” she said suddenly, as if she'd plucked the thought straight out of my head. “I tried ringing them, but there was no answer.”

“I rang your mum,” I said. “She's already on her way.”

“And Dad?” she asked, searching my face. “He's dead, isn't he?” she said, with tears trembling on her eyelashes.

“Yes. I'm sorry, but he is,” I said, and pulled her into my arms as she began to sob.

“How long ago?” her muffled voice said against my shoulder.

“Nearly as long as you've been away.  He had a heart attack a few months after you left. Your mum's all right. She's looking forward to seeing you.”

She nestled against me and wept for her father, and for the people she'd left behind in 1941. I was still holding her when Helen arrived.

“I see you've told her,” she said softly.

Polly pulled away from me instantly and said, “Mum! Mum, it's so good to see you. Oh, this is Colin Templer, the historian who brought me home.”

“I know,” Helen said, as I stood to greet her. She took both of my hands in hers and said, “Hullo, Colin. I'll never be able to thank you enough,” and kissed me on the cheek.

Polly seemed a bit confused that I should know her mother, but Helen could explain. With her mum there, I could see I was no longer needed, so I left.

I went to see Dunworthy, who was not at all pleased about being in hospital.

“They expect me to stay another three days. Completely unnecessary,” he grumbled.

“It's not unnecessary,” Kivrin said, at my questioning look. “It's something to do with his lungs. He had smoke inhalation, and then was quite ill afterwards. They're going to do a course of treatment to improve his lung function. The treatment will actually make things worse before they make them better, so he'll need a few days in hospital and then some outpatient visits afterwards.”

“Where did you get smoke inhalation?” I said curiously.

“Near St. Paul's,” he said. “I came through on the twenty-ninth.”

Christ. The twenty-ninth had been one of the worst nights of the Blitz, and the area around St. Paul's had been engulfed in flames. How had he survived?

Kivrin must have been thinking the same thing because she told me, “That's worse than what happened to you.”

“What happened to you?” Dunworthy said, inspecting me closely. “Is that Ferguson's work?” he asked, looking at my wrist.

“Yes,” I said. “I did the full course. This one's simulated. Some of the others are... hybrids.”

“You were injured on a drop? Tell me,” he demanded.

“The scars aren't from drops,” I said.

“Most of them,” Kivrin amended.

I glared at her. “I had a bicycle accident many years ago, here in Oxford, and Ferguson capitalized on the natural damage. You'll likely see the scars when the weather's warmer.”

“Then what did Kivrin mean about the twenty-ninth being worse than what happened to you?” he said suspiciously.

“I went on a drop, a bit over a year ago, to March of 1941.  I was trying to rescue Polly and Merope. At that point, I didn't know you were with them.” Or that you were alive, I silently amended.

“And?” he persisted.

“The net malfunctioned, and I came through twelve hours late, and in the East End instead of St. Paul's.”

“But the drop at St. Paul's wasn't working last month,” Dunworthy said. “Why would you have tried to use it?”

“St. Paul's Station,” I clarified. “I've been using your old drop on the emergency staircase for years.”

“Just how many drops have you... the East End? Which night?”

“The nineteenth,” I said.

“Bullivant's Wharf,” he said in horror.

“I was there, rescuing victims,” I admitted.

“And you were injured,” he said accusingly.

“Not at all seriously,” I said quickly. “A few minor cuts and bruises. But it was a rather memorable night. We should probably let you rest,” I said, as a nurse came in.

“Actually, I'm here to take him for treatment,” he said. “He'll be sedated, afterwards. You should come back tomorrow.”

“There's something you're not telling me,” Dunworthy accused, as we said goodbye.

“There are many things we haven't told you,” Kivrin said, eyeing me. “But we don't need to catch you up on ten years' worth of events, all at once. We'll talk again tomorrow.”

As we left the hospital, I asked Kivrin, “You haven't said anything about my appendix, have you?”

“Not yet,” she said. “Why? Colin, do you honestly think he won't find out?”

“He won't if you don't tell him,” I said.

Kivrin laughed. “You've clearly forgotten what he's like. I won't tell him, but I suggest you do, before he finds out from someone else.”

Polly was visiting Mr. Dunworthy the next day, when I went to see him.

“Colin!” she said. “I'm glad I caught you before I left. Mum will be here to collect me in a few minutes. I'm going to stay with her for a while and sort things out.”

“You'll be missed,” I said. “Are you planning to come back to Oxford to finish your degree?”

“I haven't made any decisions,” she said, and looked so forlorn that I didn't press her.

“I hope to see you again,” I said, and kissed her forehead.

“I hope so, too,” she said, and that was all.

After she left, Dunworthy said, “She'll be back.”

“You don't know that,” I told him.

“Kivrin endured far worse, and eventually returned to field work,” he said. “Polly's a brave girl. She adjusted to 1941. She'll adjust to 2070, too.”

“I hope so,” I said, thinking that it would be just my luck if Polly decided to swear off time travel and anyone who reminded her of it.

“Wilkens came to see me this morning,” he said, in a transparent attempt to change the subject.

“Oh?”

“He's stepping down as Acting Head.”

“You're not even out of hospital,” I protested.

“He'll continue serving until the end of Trinity. He's retiring from teaching as well, although he's agreed to stay on another year to give us time to find a suitable replacement. I'd like to recruit John Bartholomew for that position.”

“Bartholomew would be a good choice,” I said distractedly. My thoughts were still focused on Polly, and what I might do if she didn't come back to Oxford.

"And Verity will be staying on as Twentieth Century. One of the things I decided while in 1941 is that I have too many responsibilities,” he said, watching me closely.

“So you'll be Head but not a tutor,” I said numbly, trying to conceal my disappointment. For years, I'd assumed that if Dunworthy returned, he'd simply take up where he'd left off. I'd put off going to graduate school in part because I wanted to study under him.

I thought back to my first strategy meeting, when the retrieval team had told me how they'd portioned out Dunworthy's duties. Four things. Head of History. Head of Time Travel. Twentieth Century tutor. Me. I'd thought he might leave Time Travel in Finch's capable hands, but had never imagined he'd give up teaching. I knew I should be relieved he wasn't diving headlong into his former life when he was so ill, but I felt bereft.

“Actually, I thought I'd keep my hand in by tutoring a handful of graduate students whose research interests are not confined to one era," he said, smiling. "Kivrin tells me you've already done enough research to write a thesis for Twentieth Century, but are interested in the Crusades.”

Something about his expression told me that Dunworthy had seen my dismay and was both amused and gratified by it. I should have known he'd never abandon his fourth responsibility, me, which for now included being my tutor. “Yes, I'm still interested in the Crusades, but I don't actually want to go campaigning any more. When I was twelve... well, the horses and swords and battles seemed terribly exciting.”

“And now?” Dunworthy asked.

“And now I realize it's not just storybooks. If I went on a Crusade as a knight, I'd be expected to kill people, to destroy villages and crops and... well... sow misery. Until I did all those drops looking for you, I didn't truly understand how personal war is, and how cruel.” I thought about the ten-year-old I'd pulled from the wreckage of Bullivant's Wharf, and the wounded veterans I'd worked with in Twickenham, and all the bombed-out buildings I'd seen in London, not to mention the stories some of the hostel students had told about not getting enough to eat even after the war had ended.

“I rather thought that would happen,” Dunworthy said softly, looking satisfied.

“Why didn't you tell me I was an idiot for wanting to slaughter a bunch of people for no reason?”

“Because children can be rather bloodthirsty creatures,” he said. “I expected you would grow out of it, and you have, which means I will consider authorizing a drop for you to the Crusades once I'm satisfied that you're fully prepared.”

“Before I finish my degree?” I asked.

“Yes," he said, smiling. "At long last. Tell me about Merope,” he commanded, so I did.

Mr. Dunworthy's health improved dramatically over the next few days, to my relief.

“I feel thoroughly recovered,” he told me, when I visited him the day after he left hospital. “In fact, I believe I'll accompany you to Frankfurt.”

“To the conference?” I said, suddenly realizing it was only ten days off. “I haven't done a thing to prepare for my session.”

Dunworthy looked at me owlishly.  “I believe you've done at least one thing. And Ned's given me a series of photographs you might care to present. You can begin by explaining them to me.”

Ned had given Dunworthy a sheaf of photographs of the blackboards. Unlike the photographs my mother had given me, these were all properly dated in Finch's neat handwriting. I hadn't realized he'd photographed them all, but it did seem to be a complete record of the history of the blackboards, of every tiny change that had been noted over the years. How typical of him, to unobtrusively capture every detail.

I sat down next to Dunworthy, and we slowly went over them together, with me explaining what we'd believed and why, for every photograph. It took us a few hours, with Dunworthy constantly stopping me to ask questions.

When I thought I'd covered it all, he said, “There appear to be a few omissions.”

“Oh?” I said, wondering where we'd made a skip in logic without recording it.

“Here,” Dunworthy said, flipping back through the photographs. “You've just decided to search British Intelligence papers for information about Commander Harold. There appears to be a gap in the narrative.”

“Yes?” I said, still not getting his point.

He looked at me reprovingly. “You failed to mention nearly dying on a staircase in 1960.”

“Kivrin grassed.”

Dunworthy's lips twitched for a moment, but his voice remained serious. “Actually, it was Ned Henry. No doubt Kivrin's aware of your behavior, but Ned made a point of mentioning it to me, as he considers it to be your only serious weakness as an historian. He shared his concerns with me, not only about this incident but several other instances where you overextended yourself to the detriment of your health.”

“That was years ago,” I objected.

“According to Ned, it's been four months since the last time you were grounded from time travel. Isn't that so?”

I looked down at my shoes. “It was only for a week.”

“Two. It was two weeks,” he corrected, sounding cross. “Colin, I don't care if you're twenty-seven years old. This irresponsible disregard for your well-being is unacceptable, and I will not tolerate it. You know better.”

“Yes, sir,” I said automatically. I'd heard that tone of voice before, and it meant essays would be sprouting like toadstools if I didn't mend my ways quickly, and things would only go downhill from there. Dunworthy was giving me the steady glare over the top of his spectacles that told me he was quite angry, despite his reserved tone. Experience had taught me that now would be a spectacularly bad time to cheek him. I'd found that look very intimidating as a twelve-year-old. I hadn't expected it would still have the power to unnerve me.

“I'm serious about this, Colin,” he said, apparently sensing that my attention had wandered. “If I find it necessary to bring up this subject again, it will not go well for you.”

“It was the only way to save you and Polly,” I said, by way of explanation.

Dunworthy's glare intensified, and his mouth became a grim line. He wasn't going to let it go.

“It won't happen again,” I mumbled, and hoped I was telling the truth.

Dunworthy did go to the time travel conference with us. I'd been concerned it would be too much for him, but after arguing with his doctors, Dunworthy had agreed to only attend the session about the closure instead of spending the whole week in Frankfurt. I'd changed my travel arrangements so I could go back and forth with him.

“I do not need a keeper,” he said peevishly, when I told him we'd be traveling together.

“Who's keeping whom? Consider it an opportunity to model the sort of health-conscious behavior you'd like to see in me,” I said, which earned me a glare.

He seemed glad, though, of my company when we actually made the trip. He still tired very easily, although the doctors claimed that would pass, and he was growing stronger each day. Finch's secretary, Harris, had made arrangements for us at a small hotel far enough away from the conference to make it unlikely we'd be overwhelmed by other conference attendees.

Even before I'd fetched them home, Ned had decided not to publicize Polly's and Dunworthy's return. “They'll have enough to be going on with, adjusting to 2070, without theorists and historians and reporters bothering them at all hours,” he'd said.

As far as I knew, Polly was still in London with her mother. I thought of her constantly, and had been fighting the urge to call her. You've waited ten years, I told myself. You can wait a few more months.

Dunworthy and I arrived at the conference shortly before our session was due to begin, as Ned and I had planned. Ned was waiting for us near the entrance, and he and I stayed at Dunworthy's side as we made our way through the crowd. Many of the younger attendees paid no attention to us, but I saw a few disbelieving stares and there was definitely a murmur following us as we passed.

The rippling reaction intensified as we entered the room where our session was being held. Dunworthy calmly strode to the front of the room and held up his hands for silence.

“As you can see,” he said, “this will be the last special session dealing with the temporary closures around World War II and after 1995.”

Everyone began asking questions all at once: “When did you get back?” “How did you do it?” “Where are the others?”

Dunworthy gestured for silence again, and waited until the room quieted down. “I returned a little over two weeks ago. Miss Ward chose to remain in 1941, for personal reasons. Miss Churchill is taking some time away from her studies, to acclimate to 2070. As for how it was done, I'll leave that to Mr. Templer to explain.”

And I gave them an explanation, but not a complete one. I told them about speaking to Binnie and how I'd spent months searching National Service records, which was true enough, but then I told them Polly had been an ENSA performer and Merope had been a driver, making it sound as if I'd got that information from the archives instead of Mr. Dunworthy.

Ned and I had agreed in advance to say nothing as yet about my ancestry or Dunworthy's diaries. We would write a true, full account for history and perhaps even for a journal paper some day, but we were reluctant to say or do anything that might draw extra attention to Dunworthy or Polly just now.

I hadn't told Dunworthy about my agreement with Ned until the day before we left for Frankfurt. As I'd expected, he didn't approve.

“You should tell the truth,” he said, frowning at me.

“I intend to tell the truth, but selectively,” I said. “And don't give me your 'A lie by implication is still a lie' lecture. I know you think this is wrong, but I'm not going to say anything that will make it more likely the media will pick up this story and hound you and Polly. I'll write the truth down, for history.”

“As soon as we return from Frankfurt,” he insisted, still looking disapproving.

I smiled at him. “Consider it my first essay as your student.”

He harrumphed at me, and said, “I haven't agreed to be your tutor.”

“Oh?” I said. “I rather thought you'd made that decision fifteen years ago.”

It was a good thing we had the last session of the afternoon, because we ran over. Dunworthy spent a long time answering questions about what the historians had been doing in 1941, and some of the theorists had questions about the maps.

“They completely resolved, shortly after the retrieval,” Ned said. “The temporal map now looks identical to the one from January 2060.”

“So the incongruity and self-correction only existed simultaneously, as you'd thought,” Ishiwaka said. “But what was the incongruity, and what was the self-correction?”

“We're not entirely sure,” Ned said, glancing at me, “although it does appear that our historians were drawn into positions where they engaged in actions that may have affected the outcome of World War II. In a chaotic system, though, it's impossible to predict how significant their actions may have been.”

“You haven't truly learned anything from this,” one of the parrots insisted, as the session broke up.

“I disagree,” Ishiwaka said. “This incident has demonstrated that inverse maps can be used to forecast areas of closure and their resolution. And we've learned that temporary closures can exist for years, which implies that self-corrections can be more protracted in nature than we'd thought, without killing large numbers of people, which is certainly welcome news.”

“And we've learned something else,” Ned said, smiling. “Never bet against Colin.”

Dunworthy accepted Ishiwaka's invitation to dinner over my objections. I wasn't at all averse to Ishiwaka's company, but Dunworthy was clearly tired after speaking to so many people who'd wanted to welcome him back. I'd wanted him to return to our hotel to rest.

“It's not physical tiredness,” Dunworthy insisted, as we waited for a taxi, although I suspected that was a part of it. “Everyone has changed. Everyone is older. It's one thing, seeing you grown up, but seeing some of the historians I looked up to when I was young, looking so old and frail... I'm not sure what I think about having skipped ten years of my life.”

“That's ten more years you'll have to keep Colin in order,” Ned said.

“Which I'll need,” Dunworthy agreed.

“Have they always treated you like this?” Ishiwaka asked me.

“Always,” I said.

“You've no idea what Colin can be like, when he chooses not to behave,” Dunworthy said. “Imagine all that energy and resourcefulness focused on disregarding rules rather than historical research.”

“Don't we have better things to discuss?” I complained, as we climbed into a taxi.

Ned grinned. “Better, yes. More entertaining, no.”

Ned chose the restaurant this time. “Actually, it was a recommendation from Sir Stefan via Kivrin,” he said, after we'd ordered the food.

“Ned—” Dunworthy said in quiet reproof.

“Sir Stefan?” Ishiwaka said. “Miss Engle's American? I'd no idea he'd been knighted.”

I sniggered, and Dunworthy gave me a warning look over the top of his spectacles.

“He hasn't; it's just something the children like to tease Kivrin about,” Dunworthy said. “Apparently, Dr. Adamicz, while an eminently sound scholar, fails to conform to their preconceived notions of a knight errant.”

“Or to anyone's notions,” I said. Someone trod on my foot underneath the table. “But he is a first-rate historian. Kiv wouldn't have anything to do with him, otherwise. They left on assignment last week and won't be back 'til next month.”

“So, tell me what you didn't say this afternoon,” Ishiwaka said. “In confidence, of course,” he added, smiling at me.

Dunworthy turned to me in confusion, so I explained, “We've been sharing our private thoughts on the closure for some time.”

“We have some... speculation... about the incongruity,” Ned said. “Actually, the theory was originally Polly Churchill's.”

Dunworthy explained Polly's theory about the Hodbins. “It's true, they seemed to be everywhere, altering events. Polly and Merope were evicted from their boardinghouse, shortly before it was destroyed, because of their misbehavior. There was another occasion when their mischief delayed a train and likely saved them from being present when the tracks were bombed. Because of them, Merope missed opportunities to return to Oxford, not only while she was a servant in Backbury, but later, in London, when the Hodbins caused enough delay to keep Merope from contacting John Bartholomew on his practicum. At the same time, they assisted Merope on the night of the twenty-ninth, as she drove an ambulance through the burning streets of London, rescuing people, including an officer who played a small but critical role in the war after D-Day. And they were there, at the very beginning, the night I bumped into Wendy Armitage. If they hadn't delayed me, I probably wouldn't have been there to save her life.”

I made a small involuntary noise in my throat.

“Colin?” Dunworthy said, giving me a questioning glance.

“I knew I'd seen him before,” I said. “Alf. He was there on V-E Day, when I thought I saw Merope in a green coat. He lit some firecrackers and tossed them at my feet. He must have thought I was there to take his mum away. He knew me.”

“And if you'd spoken to Merope that day?” Dunworthy said.

“She would have told me when and where to find you and Polly. I would have had that information years ago, in the summer of 2066. Michael's retrieval might have gone differently.”

“Michael's retrieval couldn't have gone differently,” Ned said gently.

“I wouldn't have made the drop to March of 1941. I wouldn't have gone to Bullivant's Wharf,” I said, thinking of the people I'd pulled from the rubble. What had become of them?

“It's not just you,” Ned said. “Think of the other time travel work that was put off or never begun because we were working on Michael's retrieval.”

“Kivrin,” I said. “She would have used her sabbatical time differently. She would have waited, and taken off three terms instead of the one. She might have gone abroad, or on a series of long drops. We may have prevented her death.”

“Or kept her from meeting someone,” Dunworthy said.

“The possibilities are endless,” Ishiwaka said. “Perhaps the difference wouldn't have affected you personally.”

“There's something we haven't told you yet about Dunworthy and the Wren,” Ned said. “You may recall that Wendy Armitage married David Hardy, the man that Michael saved at Dunkirk. What you don't know is that Merope Ward is one of their descendants. One of Merope's granddaughters was Dr. Mary Ahrens, who prevented the influenza outbreak in Oxford fifteen years ago from becoming a pandemic. Mary saved Mr. Dunworthy's life, and Badri's, as well as many others, so yes, there's definitely a personal element to this for us.”

“There's more,” Dunworthy said. “Mary was my friend as well as my physician. She'd been expecting a houseguest for Christmas. When the epidemic broke out, I offered to take care of the guest, who happened to be the grandson of her long-dead sister.”

Ishiwaka looked from Dunworthy to me.

“Yes,” Dunworthy said, “That's how Colin came to me. If he hadn't followed me to 1349, I think it's quite likely neither Kivrin nor I would have returned alive. Bumping into Wendy Armitage set off a chain of events which saved my life as well as hers.”

Ishiwaka looked at Dunworthy without speaking for several long moments, then said dryly, “Among other things. Surely, there are easier ways of acquiring a son.”

“More direct methods, certainly,” Dunworthy said. “But I can't argue with the quality of the result.”

I took Dunworthy back to Oxford the next day. He seemed very quiet, and I wasn't sure how much of that was down to tiredness and how much of it was him still trying to puzzle out everything that had happened.

I felt at loose ends. So many years of my life had been focused toward one purpose. Now, with that goal suddenly achieved, I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. I meant to study under Dunworthy in the fall, of course, but what to do between now and then?

For want of anything better to do, I began the paper I'd promised Dunworthy, giving a full account of everything that had happened since April 2060. The tedium of checking my memories against my notes and the photographs Finch had taken was unexpectedly calming. Perhaps I could find some other bit of research to bury myself in after I finished this paper.

Most of the work was straightforward enough, but I found myself struggling with the conclusion. I could easily see how the closure and its resolution were intertwined with my personal life, but millions of other lives had been affected, too. Dunworthy had always encouraged me to view history in the small as well as the large, to keep sight of the fact that to the individuals living out history, the doings of their daily lives were inextricably linked to the sweeping changes surrounding them. I felt, but could not prove, that for the handful of connections I could identify as tied to my personal life, there must be countless others I was missing, related to people whose names I didn't even know. Would it be more appropriate for some other historian to be doing this work? Would someone lacking a personal connection be able to discern more of the whole?

What would some historian from the future make of all of this? They'd likely have Dunworthy's diaries to work with. I'd returned them to him, never having read the bulk of his entries about me, and hoped he hadn't written anything too embarrassing. I wondered whether I'd be known to future historians as “Dunworthy's boy” or as the historian who'd brought him home, or perhaps for something I hadn't done yet.

If incongruities only existed in the presence of self-corrections, what had history been like before the advent of time travel? Irreparable, but also unmarred? Or was marring and mending an integral part of the continuum, and history ebbed and flowed between different possibilities? If closures were meant to be large “Historians at work. Keep out.” signs, did that mean we'd one day be able to reach Waterloo, that even now there were historians from the future trapped there, making countless tiny adjustments that would eventually add up to a self-correction?

I was turning that thought over in my head when the doorbell rang. I hadn't expected Kivrin to return for another few days, but perhaps she or Stefan had suffered a minor mishap. Surely someone from the lab would have called if anything had gone seriously wrong.

I opened the door, expecting Kivrin, but found Polly standing there.

“Hullo, Colin,” she said, looking at me uncertainly. “I'm staying with Mr. Dunworthy. Just for a short time, until I find a flat.”

Staying with Dunworthy. In my old room, no doubt. How ironic. I'd often fantasized about having Polly in my bed, but had always assumed I'd be there, as well.

“So you've decided to finish your degree,” I said, then cringed at the lameness of that statement.

“Yes.  I don't really have anything sorted yet, and it will likely take an age to get all the paperwork with the University straightened out.”

“Put Finch on the case,” I said, smiling. “I'm sure he'd be glad to help.”

“Yes, of course.”  She hesitated, looking down at her hands, then glanced up at me. “The thing is, I thought I'd come round to say that I think you're simply smashing.”

Oh, Polly. I leaned down to kiss her, which was apparently the right thing to do, as she responded eagerly. We stood there on the doorstep for several minutes, kissing as if we'd never have another opportunity.

When we broke apart, I said, “But I thought you weren't sure...?” while thinking, You imbecile. Stop talking and kiss her again.

“I'm not,” she said. “About anything. But I'd rather like to give it a go.” She looked at me expectantly, as if afraid I'd only want her if she were definitely committed to marrying me.

I didn't know whether snogging each other senseless would carry us to the altar and beyond, but it seemed an excellent way to pass a rainy Saturday afternoon. I gently drew her inside and shut the door. Putting aside my philosophical musings about the nature of time travel, and my concerns about the future, I simply reveled in the presence of Polly, who was warm, and real, and mine.